One of the most productive meetings I've had since joining Oddcast was one that I was probably the most cynical about at first.  Adi, our CEO, invited me and our VP of Biz Dev to sit down for an hour and just talk about all of our "nightmare scenarios" of all of the worst things that could possibly happen to our consumer product.   I'm a bit headstrong and when I think I'm headed in the right direction, I barrel forward without looking back too much.  So, to reevaluate everything so late in the game seemed to me to be a little bit of a waste of time.

I was completely wrong.  We dove down into the very basic functionality of the product and more than kicked the tires on every assumption we made... we deflated them.  What resulted was some of our best thinking about new ideas for the product and not simply ways that we could hedge our bets, but small things we could do to ensure that our product has as broad an appeal as possible.   It was truly out of the box thinking and it got us very excited about our new ideas.   

Obviously, you need conviction to your ideas, but conviction doesn't mean burying your head in the sand either.  It's important to be willing to turn everything on its head once in a while just to make sure you're still anchored in reality and that your thinking isn't just the rationalization of momentum.

• 'Second Life Liberation Army' Targets Brands · MarketingVOX
  How long before the "I got shot by the Second Life Liberation Army Outside of American Apparel" t-shirts come out?
  (tags: secondlife mevertising)

Fantasy baseball draft at Mondial Tiles.

I have a closet with three Container Store shelves, each with two large folded piles on it.  The piles are:

• Nice t-shirts
• Grey and black t-shirts that used to be nice, but are maybe a little faded, so they're good for wearing underneath button down shirts
• Decent gym t-shirts
• Not so nice gym t-shirts and things with sleeves cut off
• Gym shorts and pants
• Random shirts with specific usage, like ZogSports t-shirts, softball jerseys, etc.

I have no sweaters.  I always lock the bathroom door, even when I'm in the apartment alone.  I bounce my right leg up and down when I'm sitting without even noticing it.  I hate soccer.  I fall asleep before my head hits the pillow and would easily sleep uninterrupted for 12 hours every night if it wasn't for my alarm clock.  I do not trust the snooze button...  I reset the alarm even just five minutes from now just to be on the safe side.  I have a fear of heights.  I'm eating craisins right now.  I once broke down in a U-Haul truck in Mechanicsville, PA.  Ironically, there was no one around to help us until the next day.  I nearly pass out over needles.  I have a discoloration on my right hand where I tore off a big chunk of skin playing street football when I was 15.  I broke the toilet in my old apartment by standing on the tank to weatherproof the windows.  The whole tank tore from the floor and toppled over.  I managed to get it back, but it was sitting precariously for a month before I left.  Seattle is the next major US city I would like to visit that I haven't been to. 

When I yawn, my eyes tear uncontrollably.  That's my que to go to bed.

This is a must read for anyone interested in mobile.

Jason Devitt has a three part series on the market forces that might bust open the carrier crunch.

Part I.

Part II.

Part III.

You should really check out Ask City. 

Links to businesses, movies, events...  And I can draw, annotate, and put my own pins in the map.  Didn't think anything would get me off Google Maps but one use and I'm hooked.

Link to pizza, 7423 Ridge Blvd, Brooklyn, NY 11209 - Ask Business Search

You should really check out Ask City. 

Links to businesses, movies, events...  And I can draw, annotate, and put my own pins in the map.  Didn't think anything would get me off Google Maps but one use and I'm hooked.

Link to pizza, 7423 Ridge Blvd, Brooklyn, NY 11209 - Ask Business Search

nextNY is now 459 members on a listserv...all coming together in about 10 months.  We've averaged about an event a month, and probably somewhere in the neighborhood of averaging 45-50 attendees per event.  Already, there's a nextChicago and talk of the next concept appearing in other cities.  A lot of people have asked me how it got put together, so I thought I'd share.  Sorry if this is a bit long and rambling, but that's a lot like how the group unfolded.  It wasn't a part of some big master plan... it evolved.

First thing I did was to e-mail a small group of about 5-10 people who represented a good cross section of the community...  people that I had met in person on several occasions.  I wanted to get ideas and feedback from people involved in the NYC tech community from a number of different perspectives.  These weren't A-listers that hardly knew me...   They were people I knew I could count on to be enthusiastic about passing on the word about what we were doing.   The first few people you involve really need to be enthusiastic. 

Our first goal was just to get people together in person socially.  From the beginning, I think everyone involved agreed that it was important to build real social ties within the group before we attempted any kind of grand undertaking. 

Everyone involved e-mailed me to RSVP and I just put everyone on a big "BCC" list.  When the number of people responding got out of hand, I moved pretty quickly to a Google Groups list.  That accomplished two things.  First, I didn't want our messaging to just be about me broadcasting.  The group should be able to talk within itself rather than just get talked to.  Plus, that allowed everyone in the group to set their own participation level.  Most people get every group e-mail as it comes in, but some get digests.

Here's how the listserv works for us.  The listserv is private and you have to get approved by a moderator to join.  Sound sort of walled garden?  Maybe, but I think granting access to people's inboxes should require some level of oversight.  That being said, every single person who asks for approval gets it and the only thing I do sometimes is to respond back to a generic e-mail address and ask them who they are.  I think it's good to watch who is coming into the group--first to make sure they are actual humans and second to direct them to others they might want to get connected to.  (Or just to say a friendly hello.)   Having a second or third admin is important, too, even if they're not doing approvals.  You never want a situation where someone can say that you were unilaterally dictating any policy.

This fits with some basic guiding principals that I've tried to stick with:

• The group is owned and run by the community.  We have no board, no officers.  Everyone's voice gets to be heard.
• That being said, it's not exactly majority rules, because we try to stay clear of voting.  Voting doesn't always work, because not everyone will bother to vote and some people put more work into the group than others, so the question of whose vote counts more would come into play.  The group is really driven by legwork and feedback.  If someone has an interest in something, they do the work to lay it out and gather support.  Social capital is a big factor.  Generally, if someone gets a lot of pushback on something, it's not worth costing yourself a lot of social capital to try and push ahead against the expressed wishes of the group.  It works amazingly well.  At least three of our events were completely driven by members of the group who just announced an interested, gathered support, and made it happen.
• So far, we've been able to avoid anything to do with money, with the exception of renting gym space for our dodgeball tournament.  No membership fees and no other charges for admission.  Our event spaces have been donated as have been our web properties.  I think when money is involved at the group administration level, it dictates that you need more hierarchy and structure, and when you start building that in, you leave open the possibility for more disagreement on how things should be run. 
• Commitment to offline.   I think it is important for a group like this to run regular in-person events.  It doesn't matter if you only get 10 people, but make it a point to try and do something every month... and commit to it over the long term.  Don't do two, see how it goes, and give up.  Not everyone wants to take part in a listserv, but if you have something concrete to direct people to, it helps when you're trying to spread the word.  "Hey, come show up to our next event on xx date..."   The participants will come and go, but you'll grow a stronger core group over the longer term that sticks with it that you'll get to know even better.
• Everyone in the group should feel like they can lead any effort. 

Ok... back to technology.   One thing about a group of techies on a listserv is that you can debate which technology to use forever, and often people want to use the latest and most complicated thing, when sometimes all you need is drop dead simple.  For us, I think the best technology decision we ever made was to make the site out of a wiki.  Our website is built on top of Stikipad and it has served us well.  Anyone can create a page for any purpose and we do all our event RSVPs from it.   The website was created by volunteers from the group who offered to design and implement it.  My part?  I secured the domain name.  It was rough, I know... but I pulled through it.

We just launched our blog a short time ago even though blogging was something we had discussed a long time ago.  We voted a blog down initially, b/c we didn't want to broadcast quite yet before we even knew what our goals were or whether or not the group would have any staying power.  Plus, we were avoiding the question of "who is allowed to blog".    That question came up again, and we've opened it up to anyone, but we do have a blog policy.  We encourage members to discuss what they'd like to write about, because we're very conscious about people writing things that may not be representative of the group.  So far, we've done more covering and promoting than opining and that's probably the better way to go.  Opinion pieces are probably better left to the personal blogs of members.  Oh, and we used SquareSpace for the blog, which wasn't "standard" in the tech world, but it's a NYC based company and it has served us very well so far.  More so than what people want to use, you need to pick a platform that is liked by the person who is actually going to set it up, because blogs don't create themselves, plus they all pretty much work in a similar way.

On the name...    There are two things about a name that I was looking for.  One, something that implyed a younger group.  That's where "next" comes in... it implies the future, the next generation...whatever.  Also, the word tech is not in the title and that was on purpose.  Technology, particularly in NYC, also needs to encompass digital media and I wanted to make sure that we got folks from the design, advertising, marketing and PR worlds as well, because it's really about the whole community, not just the builders of technology.

One thing I got a lot of questions upfront about was the whole "young people" thing.  In fact, I got summarily booed at a NY Tech Meetup (which I'm proud to say) when I mentioned age.  We don't have any specific age limits and since then, I've sidestepped the question by saying "up and coming".  That's a better way to put it and actually closer to what I intended.  I wanted to meet other people who were looking up the ladder... who were trying to figure out what the next thing was going to be.   We always like meeting more experienced people, and they come as speakers to our events, but having "up and comers" makes the group more about learning, advice, helping bring other people up, and less about just making business contacts.  In a way, it was sort of selfish, because that's what I was looking for at the time.

We also try to make sure that our events reflect our stated focus on participation by the community.  Even when we invite expert speakers, we invite them to "Community Conversations" and put them in the audience to help drive discussion, not sit on a panel and broadcast. 

Last thing.  I'll repeat one thing.  The group would not survive if it had to live and die with the leadership of one person.  Everyone in the group really needs to feel empowered to initiate and follow through while at the same time, keeping an open dialogue with the group.  I'd like to think, in fact I know, that if I walked away from nextNY right now, it wouldn't skip a beat and that's the best thing I could have hoped for it.  A lot of people have told me, "Hey, you know, you could really turn this into something much bigger for yourself."  The truth is, I couldn't.  If I did, I wouldn't have all these great people wanting to participate.  They're participating because of their interest in the community. 

Also, what could be bigger than meeting 400+ enthusiastic local folks who share your interests?  That's pretty big, to me.

I hope you found this helpful.  Feel free to start your own next community in your area.  We don't own any rights to anything and we actively promote active community building, no matter where you are. 

• The Blogging Times » Quest For Web 2.0 Person(s) of Substance: The Husband/Wife VC Blogger Teams
  (tags: couples vc nyc fredwilson marriage)
• MySpace to Apple: Fix that worm | Tech News on ZDNet
  (tags: myspace apple worm)
• Brand Autopsy: The Results of Refuting versus Relishing
  According to an Adweek article from Sept. 4th, “Mentos has attracted over 300 submissions, which have been viewed more than 400,000 times. The Coke Show, which wrapped up its first contest last week, got only 35 videos, with none getting more than 2,000
  (tags: marketing video viral youtube fordhamclass)

Hopefully, enough of you stick around so that this sticks, but for now, my Feedburner RSS feed count is showing four digits for the first time.  Yup...  1,012 readers. 

Now each of you just need to recommend this blog to 150 other people and we'll catch TechCrunch in no time.  :)

Actually, the thing that always gets me is that I have no idea who most of you are.  So, like I've done once before...   Here's your opportunity to introduce yourself, particularly if you've been lurking this whole time.

Please feel free to announce your presence in the comments...  Tell us who you are, how you got here, what you do... feel free to link to your own company, blog, flickr photos, last.fm page, LinkedIn, whatever...     I'm always happy to meet more readers.

And thanks for reading!   

USS Intrepid - Departing, originally uploaded by tom_hoboken.

Nice work Tom from Hoboken!

Intrepid moves, originally uploaded by semarr.

I saw a story on CNN about how the Intrepid was finally sprung free from the mud it was sitting in for 20 years. Turns out the damn thing actually still floats. I went straight to Flickr to find a picture and boom... 1/2 hour old.... camera phone pics of the Intrepid getting tugged down the Hudson.

No, I'm not talking about babies born too early...  (I was born ten days late, in case you were curious...)  I'm talking pre-MBA's.   More and more VC firms and startups are finding that having some more "net native" up and comers around can be pretty valuable, and they're getting more expanded roles than just dialing for dollars. 

One great example who is now blogging is Sarah Tavel from Bessemer Venture Partners.  She recently joined us at a nextNY event and rumor has it shoots a mean stick at the pool table.  Hopefully, she encourages more women to participate in nextNY and the NYC area technology community at large.

IMG_0412, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Perhaps I'm beating these sunset and cloud photos to death. I really just can't get enough of the sky, though...

If blogging really is a cocktail party, then I should really be listening and contributing to other people's conversations just as much as I'm expecting people to listen to mine.   I mean, who would really want to engage in a conversation with someone who just talks about their own stuff all the time?   

So, starting today, I'm going to make a valient attempt to comment as much as I post (not including my daily link posts).   

You can track how well I'm doing with my new coComment widget on the sidebar.  I took the Incircles chat thing off, b/c I didn't have a way to see if anyone was using it and the couple of times I popped in there, no one was.  I guess I should finally give up on the idea of embedded chat.  I've used coComment before, but never the widget...  this is take two.

There's even an RSS feed for it.  If and when I figure out how to get that feed spliced into my Feedburner feed, I'll do that.

So, from now on, I'll be trying to write as much on other people's blogs as much as I write here.

• Adactio: Journal - Streaming my life away
  (tags: trymelater)

IMG_0408, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

My friend from Footlocker got me a 40% discount coupon, so I did a little e-shopping. Those of you who have met me in person know that I've been in serious need of a new backpack. Problem solved. I've also solved a two-sneaker problem. I wear sneakers around the office, but I wear gray sneakers at the gym. This is a little too casual for me... Why I think black sneakers are more dressy than gray sneakers I have no idea, but that's the way I feel about it. However, my Sketchers aren't really made for crosstraining, so I needed a pair of black shoes. Now I can just use the same sneakers the whole day at work. Wooo! I love how the bags are almost identical. At least the sneakers have some highlights. What can I say? I'm a creature of habit.

"Sooner or later, most online communities reach this crisis point because the ideals of the founders are replaced by regulations demanded by the different types of people who interact in them. We shouldn't be surprised; what we do when we interact online is replicate the social practices we are familiar with offline."

Source: Real life crashes into Second Life's digital idyll | Technology | Guardian Unlimited Technology

• Second Life residents get free cellphones » Coolest Gadgets
  Neat product placement idea...
  (tags: mobile secondlife cellphones)
• Giugiaro’s Mustang: A True Italian Stallion - New York Times
  Vroom
  (tags: mustang)

So Guy Kawasaki, who is "by no means “proven” as a venture capitalist" (by his own admission) has put together a quiz about what it takes to be a VC. 

Guy thinks that , "When you’re young, you should work eighty hours a week to create a product or service that changes the world. You should not sit in board meetings listening to an entrepreneur explaining why she missed her numbers while you read email on a Blackberry and intermittently spew forth gems like, “You should partner with MySpace; I can also introduce you to a few of the losers in our portfolio.”

Furthermore, entrepreneurs should view any young person who opted for venture capital over “real world” experience with contempt."

Well, Guy, I started out on the financing side, first at an insitutional LP where I listened to a lot of VCs and then on the VC side where I listened to a lot of entreprenuers and the VCs I got to work with.  It took me a while at each place before I started contributing my own two cents, and I tried to do it where I felt I had some relevent insight.  Listening, in my opinion, is a skill in short demand and I feel like I learned a lot.  Now I'm taking what I learned to the "real world" on the operational side, but I don't think that any of the entrepreneurs I met looked at me with contempt before I joined Oddcast.  I'm glad they didn't.   

Here's my advice to young people trying to get into the field.  Don't let anyone tell you how to get to Mecca.  There are many ways, and one thing I remembered at my time at GM was that the VCs I met came from lots of different backgrounds.   Some were former entreprenuers. Others were technologists.  A few came from journalism and media... others... sales.   

And, to debunk Guy's quiz, I'll give the example of Mike Moritz.  Moritz is a partner at Sequoia.  You may know the startups he's funded:  Google, Yahoo!, PayPal, eGroups, Agile...   Most people consider him to be somewhat good at his job.

If Mike were to take Guy's quiz, here's what he would score:

Part I: Work Background

What is your background?

• Engineering (add 5 points) 
• Sales (add 5 points)
• Management consulting (subtract 5 points)
• Investment banking (subtract 5 points)
• Accounting (subtract 5 points)
• MBA (subtract 5 points)

Mike would get -5 points here, because he joined Sequoia after reporting for Time Magazine and starting a newsletter and conference business. In other words, he was a media guy.  Then, he made the mistake of getting an MBA.

"The ideal venture capitalist has an engineering or a sales background."  Sorry, Mike.

Part II: First-Hand Experiences

You may have been in the right places, but you also need the right experiences in those places. Specifically, have you gone through these? 

• Been kicked in the groin by a major, long-lasting economic downturn, so that you know how powerless you are. (add 1 point)

Hmm...  since Mike has been part of a successful firm for 20 years, and he invested in Google during the bubble, I'd say this is a no.  His track record seems to have left his groin intact.  No points.

• Worked at a successful startup, so that you can speak first-hand about the ecstasy of entrepreneurship. (add 1 point)

Nope.  No points.

• Worked at a failed startup, so that you understand three things: first, how hard it is to achieve success; second, that the world doesn’t owe you a thing; and third, what it’s like to be fired or laid off. (add 3 points)

No failures, no points.

• Worked at a public company, so that you know what the end goal looks like, warts and all. (add 1 point)

Reporter for Time.  Time was public.  Um....  1 point I guess.

• Held a CEO position, so that you have this fantasy experience out of your system and will not try to run the startup from a board position. (add 2 points)

Was he the CEO of the conference company he co-founded?  Maybe... 2 points.

• Been an angel investor with your own money, so that you understand the fiduciary responsibility of investing other people’s money. (add 2 points)

I don't think he can angel invest while working at a VC, so I'd say no.  No points.

Part III: Necessary Knowledge

Finally, can you answer these questions for entrepreneurs? Because this is the kind of advice that entrepreneurs need. (Don’t worry: many current venture capitalists would fail this part.)

• How do I introduce a product with no budget? (add 2 points)

I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on most of these, b/c he seems pretty smart... never met him (would like to, of course), but I'll assume.  2 points

• How do I determine whether there’s really a market demand for my product? (add 1 point)

1 point.  (Seems like this should get more weight, but ok..whatever...)

• What do I do if customers hate our first product? (add 1 point)

1 point...  [shrugs]

• How do I get Walt Mossberg to return my call? (add 2 points)

This is one of those, "The way to be a successful VC is to be a successful VC before" things...  I imagine Walt would answer Mike's call.  2 pts.

• How do I get to the folks who run Demo? (add 1 point)

See above.  1 point.

• How do I get a plug in TechCrunch? (add 1 point)

I have an issue with this one.  I don't think TechCrunch has made or broken any companies (the products may have broken themselves...  Arrington just calls 'em as he sees 'em).   Plus, I don't really think a VC making a call to Arrington would really influence him... maybe a VC who blogs or anyone who blogs, but otherwise I really think its just create something worthwhile and submit.  0 points.

• How do I get the folks at Fox Interactive to return my call? (add 1 point)

Hmm... if you're investing in a B2B company, I'm not sure how this is relevent.... but, I imagine they'd return Mike's call.  A point, I guess.

• How do I dominate a segment when there are five other companies doing essentially the same thing? (add 2 points)

2 Points... see Google.

• How much time, energy, and money should I spend on patent protection? (add 1 point)

1 Point...  a patent lawyer would know this, too.

• We bet on the wrong architecture for our product; what do I do now? (add 2 points)

Since MM isn't a technical guy, but he probably has connections to lots of great CTO's, I'm going to give him 1 point here.

• What kind of people should I hire: young, old, unproven, proven, cheap, expensive, local, remote? (add 1 point)

As if there was a right answer to this... whatever... 1 point.

• How do I get them to leave their current jobs without throwing a lot of money at them? (add 2 points)

Benefit of the doubt... 2 points.

• How do I tell my best friend that he can’t be chief technical officer just because he was a cofounder? (add 2 points)

2 points.

• How do I get to the buyer at BestBuy to return my call? (add 1 point)

1 point... b/c anyone with a clue will say, "Make a product people demand at the store."

• How do I handle a customer who wants to send back his purchase for a full refund? (add 1 point)

1 point.

• How do I fire people? (add 2 points)

2 points.

• How do I lay people off? (add 2 points)

2 points.

So, on experience, I gave him most of the points, assuming that anyone with a 20 year career in VC should know this stuff.

So, that makes his total...21.

According to the results chart:

24 points or less: Work until you can score higher and keep flying on Southwest Airlines.

:)