We now have personality test widgets for the Path 101 Personality Test!   You can share and compare with your friends side by side!  Click here to see if we're anything alike.

"charlie, can't believe someone took your bike.   Hopefully they'll crash into a wall."  -- Plugoo message left by my mom.

"If you're a Tigers fan, I'll never stress you out again. If you're not a Tigers fan, you'll never have me as your ace in the hole, convinced I'll blow a lead against your team."

The Bubba Strikes Back Fantasy Baseball League - League Home

The most recent tracks I've been listening to on last.fm:

Starting this Wednesday night, September 24th, I'll be teaching ITAC's FastTrac course, which is a beginner's overview on starting up your own business.  ITAC has served as the Marion Ewing Kauffman Foundation’s certified provider of FastTrac entrepreneurship training in NYC for 9 years.  It's not just limited to tech companies--last spring we had three bakers, a fashion line, an HVAC remanufacturer, and a nanotech company in the mix. 

The class goes for 10 successive Wednesday nights and we bring in speakers to cover various areas of entrepreneurship, like financing, recruiting, marketing, etc.

Please contact Veronica Price (vprice@itac.org) with your name, company, and phone number by noon tomorrow for more details and be prepared to come to tomorrow night's first session if there are open spots.

The class costs $1,000, a small part of which goes to pay my salary, but mostly goes to fund ITAC's associated entrepreneurial support activities.  ITAC is a nonprofit consulting and training organization dedicated to helping NYC manufacturing and technology companies with programs that increase their top and bottom lines.

Links I've recently tagged on del.icio.us:

Duh... of course they should.  It's about time!

Alana Taylor, who hopefully will be joining me on a panel at the next SXSW if it gets approved, recently blogged about a class she was taking at NYU with Prof. Mary Quigley as part of a project for the PBS MediaShift blog.  (The comments on that post are interesting...)  Her post wasn't exactly flattering to her professor, which prompted her to ban Alana from blogging or Twittering about the class again--and then backtrack on that, obviously realizing that she taught at NYU, which is supposed to be on the side of protecting, not snuffing out, freedom of speech.

The ironic part of this story was that the class was about Generation Y and new media.  While the professor taught about blogging, it seems she never actually expected the students in the class to go out and blog themselves.  The professor's reaction was remenicent of an old school mainstream media company--attack the consumer first, stand behind the letter of the law, and then back off to a more reasonable position.  This professor told Alana that she had violated privacy rights by blogging about the classroom activities.

Check out the full story here.

Personally, I can't even imagine telling a student they couldn't blog, tweet, or videotape any of my lectures.  Why?  If I feel confident in what I'm teaching, I should be excited about the idea of opening up my content to the world for feedback, idea generation, critique, etc.  I'd certainly be excited that my students would be using new media tools and working on PBS projects.

If I were Prof. Quigley, I'd work with Alana to figure out how to use all these social media tools to really make the most out of the class.  How about reaching out to other students outside of the classroom through blogs and video, or creating a class wiki and blog whereby lots of people could participate with their own knowledge and feedback.  Perhaps Prof. Quigley would get it if she started blogging and Twittering herself.

Thoughts?   Any teachers want to defend the idea of the closed classroom?

I don't often agree with Penelope, but I definitely thought this same when I heard about her family.  Penelope has special needs kids and a similar home life...

"Okay. Look. I wasn't going to tell you what I think of Sarah Palin, but so many people are asking, so fine. Here it is. She is nuts. And the Republicans are nuts for putting her on a ticket. She has a five-month-old kid with Down's Syndrome."

Palin's children should take priority over being Vice President » Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk

1000!, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

I was expecting balloons to drop or something...

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.

VCs vs Entrepreneurs in the Shake Shack Challenge, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Thanks to Daryn from TeachStreet.com who joined me and Bryce Roberts from O'Reilly AlphaTech for lunch today. I wasn't thinking I was going to be back so soon, but it was Bryce's first time. We had Shack Stacks.

tmarman: The @shakeshack event was a resounding success - everyone thank @ceonyc again for his effort on setting of up. Go #nextNY!

vacanti: @ceonyc Best new york tech event I have been to, BY FAR. Awesome job.

dangellert: Back from basketball and a great event put together by @ceonyc. Great food and great people

jonsteinberg: @ceonyc Let me throw my kudos on top of everyone else. Fantastic event...great meeting face to face (again)

DorianBenkoil: @ceonyc It was a wonderful thing, all that Shakin' going on.

Dan121377: @ceonyc A for the event. A+ for the Hannibal Smith reference.

sachinag: @ceonyc That was great. You should be proud. Many thanks!

alexandergordon: Fun night at @ceonyc's @shakeshack and TechSet. No more talkie, time for sleepy

rauenzahner: @ceonyc knows how to set up an event. ShakeShack was a huge success and I met some really awesome people!

caroliiine: Also, big props to @ceonyc for throwing one hell of a burgerfest.

tobins: @ceonyc Thanks so much for putting @shakeshack together. Met a lot of new folks and had great discussions.

epc: @ceonyc Fantastic job on @shakeshack tonight!

christianbusch: Thanks to @ceonyc and chi.mp plus other sponsors for pulling together @shakeshack! Good community event and great people

Shripriya: @ceonyc very nice job, charlie. you should be proud of yourself...

dherman76: Great job @ceonyc for @shakeshack event. Had a great time!

WayneMulligan: @ceonyc Great event Charlie!!

zarzecks: @ceonyc kudos on such a great event. Was a blast.

jasonoliver: @ceonyc great job with the event man. Let's definitely grab food sometime soon.

tikkers: Huge thanks to @ceonyc and chi.mp and the rest of the sponsors for the @shakeshack event!!

whitneymcn: @kortina Good to meet you too, and @ceonyc - thanks for making this happen! Great party, though I'd expect nothing less from @shakeshack. :)

kortina: dinner @shakeshack w @navajeet @ceonyc @innonate @charlesforman @rauenzahner @jonsteinberg @whitneymcn @alexlines @ et al! back to work...

Philip_James: Great event @shakeshack, good work to @ceonyc

dam00n: @ceonyc great event fantastic kickoff to the week

CathleenRitt: Hey @ceonyc and the people at chi.mp and of course @shakeshack sure know how to throw a party

Jschwa: @ceonyc seriously nice job that was no joke

innonate: @ceonyc Is. The. Man. GREAT party man. You killed it.

ronaldbradford: home after Web 2.0 NY events. Shake Shack, sponsored by chi.mp and Women in Tech. Both great networking.

mylerdude: Wow! The @chimp bash at the shake shack totally rocked. NYC take note: that's how it's done.

MCholly: very goid NextNY event at (drum roll please).....shake shack! Nice meeting food and seeing familar faces

BeenVerified: Shake Shack event went great, will post pics on blog soon. Gearing up for Web2.0 Expo now...

imnoah: Good food at shake shack/nextny party. Now off to techset party

RobFarrow: Hanging at shakes shack, crowd is jumping

mknell: wow - the entire Shake Shack is shut for this...Cool :)

The most recent tracks I've been listening to on last.fm:

Perfect storm: I just started teaching my entrepreneurship class again at Fordham this semester, @shakeshack is tomorrow, I'm raising capital for Path 101, dodgeball and softball are starting up for the fall again...    but no worries.  No blogging hiatuses.

I had a VC ask me today how I have the time to blog.

It's 11:41PM right now.  I'm in the office, and I'm blogging.  I make the time.

Can't wait to bike home tonight... it's such a nice night out.

2008-09-15_1533, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

... right in front of my apt, too. That was a great spot!

"Now, I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You're an idiot. I mean that. This is not one of those cases where we're going to agree to disagree. This isn't one of those situations where we debate it passionately and then walk away thinking that the other guy is wrong but argued well. I'm not going to think of you as a thoughtful but misguided person with different ideas who still really cares about the country and the world. No, sorry, not this time. This time, if you watched those interview excerpts and weren't scared out of your freakin' mind, then you're mentally ill, mentally disabled, or mentally disturbed."

Michael Seitzman: Sarah Palin Naked

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.

Selling perceived control to fear is a great way to generate revenue.

It's also a great political strategy.

It's short term, sure, but very repeatable short term.