Chip Griffin: Pardon the Disruption

John Edwards Does Gnomedex

I wasn't able to make it out to Gnomedex, unfortunately. Fortunately, I've been able to catch some of it through the streaming feed provided by the conference.

I found it very interesting several weeks ago when I first heard that John Edwards would be a keynote speaker at the event. It really demonstrates the lengths that political candidates -- especially Democrats -- seem willing to go to press their presidential campaigns among bloggers and high-tech influentials.

Edwards himself has been trying to put himself in the forefront of the technology informed politicians going back a couple of years ago when he first began podcasting.

Chris Pirillo introduced the former Senator mostly by begging the crowd to be civil.

I wonder if Edwards knew what he was getting into. Edwards decided to go with more of a discussion than a speech (which is the format of the conference generally). The first commenter started simply enough by saying he was glad that Edwards' wife was doing better (she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of the last election). The second stumped Edwards by asking if he had ever read the book "Wisdom of Crowds" and thought of using it for political decisions.

The third questioner launched into a profanity-laced tirade that began with his declaration that he was a third generation "red diaper baby" -- Edwards made clear that he didn't know what that was and was told it meant the questioner was a communist. The gist of the guy's question was why won't Democrats fight more aggressively. Not your typical event for a presidential candidate!

The next guy effectively asked why politicians seem so fake.

Another person asked what he thought about taxing Internet traffic. Edwards said he hadn't thought enough about the issue to know what he thought about that one.

A number of folks were concerned about the Patriot Act and monitoring Internet activities.

Repeated efforts were made to steer the conversations back to tech issues, with moderate success.

At one point Edwards hinted he might be willing to allow a blogger to follow him all the time on the campaign trail to allow voters to see the real candidate, unpolished. He did express his hope that he could sleep without being followed, but suggested it might be worth allowing everything else to be seen. Frankly, I'm skeptical of such an arrangement -- how do you have strategy meetings if the world hears the whole internal debate? But I do think there's room to allow more coverage of campaigns by bloggers in a less varnished way.

Overall, Edwards did a decent job of fielding the questions and comments, though I wonder frankly how much benefit his appearance had either for his campaign or for the conference. It certainly created a little buzz for both, but I just don't see it as being much more than that.

On Connectedness and Relaxation

Several times in the past few weeks I have had conversations with entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs about remaining connected while on vacation. Now, I am the first to admit that I typically don't vacation well. As I've gotten older, I have become slightly better at it and actually try to downshift and recharge my batteries more regularly.

Except for perhaps one trip a year when I promise my wife to fully shut down, I always remain connected. I have my Treo, my laptop, my EVDO card, etc. My response time may be a little bit slower -- especially if I've had my first martini -- but I'm still fully reachable. Most of the entrepreneurs I know are similar. One of my business partners is in Europe with his family and I'm at a lake in New Hampshire, but I've gotten a steady stream of email from his Blackberry and he's gotten plenty of messages from my Treo in return.

In talking with others about these habits, they often have a hard time understanding it. I try to explain that I actually relax better when I'm connected not simply because I am confident that I'm available should the need arise, but just as important I know that I'm not going to return to thousands of emails that need to be processed. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the flow of communications when I'm fully engaged, so to put it all aside for a week would make my return to civilization absolutely miserable.

This isn't something exclusive to entrepreneurs, but I find that far more entrepreneurs I know would agree with this thinking than others I work with.

I do sometimes wonder if it is contagious, though. Remember I said my wife tries to get me to shut off all the electronics once a year? Turns out she's becoming a bit of an addict herself. The last vacation we took together she actually asked me to make sure I had my gear with me so she could check her email, and this week she brought her own laptop to the lake after making sure the house we're visiting had a wireless network!

Interview with Townhall.com's Jon Garthwaite

Today, I'm introducing a new feature at TechJots: podcast interviews. 

My first guest is Jon Garthwaite, the Editor in Chief of Townhall.com, a conservative Internet portal recently acquired by Salem Communications for $5 million, a large broadcasting company that owns 34 radio stations across the county.  Jon talked about what the acquisition means and previewed some major changes to the site that are coming next week.

Listen to the MP3 here.

Read the full transcript here.

The new Townhall.com will provide a higher level of interactivity for users and will especially focus on empowering their conservative audience to generate and edit content.  Jon said, "we're going to give people the first opportunity to create their own blog and to blog side-by-side with Hugh Hewitt." 

Jon also told me that they will be creating a new feature that in some ways combines elements of Digg.com and the New Netscape to enable conservatives to nominate interesting content for fellow readers.

Perhaps most importantly, Jon helps to explain how the new partnership with the radio stations and talk show hosts in the Salem Communications network will create considerable synergy between the talk radio world and the Internet.  In other words, how do you take Townhall.com's 1.2 million readers and Salem's 6 million listeners and create something more powerful (and the hope is more profitable, also).

Disclosure: I headed up townhall.com in the mid to late 90's and was Jon's boss at the time. 

Startups and Titles

Ed Sim had a great post recently about top-heavy startup teams.

I agree. My view in any startup -- including ones in which I have been directly involved -- should always be prepared to layer every employee with someone better and more senior. Sometimes, that means moving the old person out, but more often than not it simply means putting someone above them in the food chain.

When I'm building teams, I avoid using titles as long as possible and make clear to everyone from the get-go that in a startup roles change and everyone needs to pitch in a little bit on everything. Tech guys need to have a little of their mind on marketing and marketing folks need to have a little of their brainpower devoted to the product. That's just how it is to be successful. Now, I'm never going to ask a marketing person to code or a programmer to write marketing copy, but you get the idea.

The challenge with executive titles tends to be most acute with founders. Once titles must be assigned (as they generally must once you ask for money or begin to get involved in serious business development and partnership discussions), there's a tendency to be sure all founders have lofty titles. In principal, I don't disagree with this so long as the mindset is such that each is prepared to step aside for someone better to fill that role down the road. A good founder will have no problem with this.

Of course, another solution is to give founders lofty sounding titles that don't require a title change when hired talent comes on board. For a while at one of the companies I founded I was the Chief Innovation Officer. I didn't have the technical training to be CTO and didn't want to give anyone inside or outside the company the impression I did, so that title did a good job of representing my role in leading product development. I've also seen plenty of Chief Evangelists and the like. Or look at Bill Gates (Chief Software Architect) to understand this isn't just a small company phenomenon.

But when it comes to hiring folks with lofty titles, take it slow. It's hard to take away a title from a VP/Sales and still keep him on board. And if you can't get someone to join your startup without handing out that kind of title, it probably tells you something about the suitability of that person to a startup environment.

Tags: startup, vc, beyondvc

Is Hosted Gmail the Answer?

Ken Yarmosh over at Technosight is excited about hosted Gmail, which he is currently beta testing. He notes that a real advantage it has is that even though he uses multiple computers, he always has the same view of his email. For some, this may indeed be a good solution.

But I prefer a hosted Microsoft Exchange solution. (In my case, I use Intermedia's service, but there are other good ones that friends of mine use.)

As Ken notes, he has to login to the Gmail service to have that common look and feel. And he says he prefers an email client but is willing to sacrifice it to get the benefits of Gmail.

In my case, I can't rely on something I must connect to. I spend too much time each week on airplanes where I need to be able to work offline with my email on my laptop. Fortunately, a hosted Exchange server solution enables me to use Outlook on any of my 3 computers plus my Treo 700w and be sure that I always have a consistent picture.

Better yet, my contacts and calendar are all synced across all of those platforms as well.

So Gmail may work for some, but many will prefer access to Exchange, especially since a number of good, affordable, hosted solutions are now available and you no longer have to set up and administer your own email server.

Tags: gmail, exchange, hosted email, technosight

InterAdvocacy Joins TechJots Network

This blog has joined the TechJots blog network, which right now also includes TechJots and NH TechJots. InterAdvocacy will continue to follow the business of content and public affairs online, while TechJots follows high-tech entrepreneurship and angel investing. NH TechJots has a specific focus on the high-tech community in the Granite State.

Soon you will see some shared content in the left column of this blog. And they of course will share content from InterAdvocacy.

I encourage you to check out these other blogs if the topics interest you.

I Need a Meta Memetracker

Lately there's been a ton of discussion in the blogosphere about memetrackers (mostly Digg vs. the New Netscape). Some breathless speculation even suggests that these sites could overtake more traditional media properties like the New York Times, if not in influence at least in numbers.

First, for those who may yet be unfamiliar with these sites, they basically give users the opportunity to vote on online content they like. The more votes, the higher the content rises within the memetracker site's hierarchy. The primary difference between the two is that Digg operates as a pure democracy where users' votes are the sole determining factor in what rises to the top. The New Netscape can be thought of more as a republic where the views of the populace are considered, but at the end of the day editors select from among the most voted for content to decide what appears first.

The New Netscape also tries to engage in what I'd describe as "secondary journalism" by following up on the content that users nominate. For instance, if someone runs a blog post complaining about a particular company and it rises to the top of the New Netscape, editors there will contact the blogger and the company to get more of the story.

Essentially, both of these services (and other semi-automated ones like TailRank and TechMeme) attempt to take advantage of the Long Tail and expose users to content they may otherwise have overlooked. I certainly think there's a role for such services, and in fact I use several of them myself to stay on top of trends.

There is often a tendency among them, however, to effectively drive the conversation rather than to report on it, especially with TechMeme. For example, bloggers seeking traffic will often see topics on TechMeme and comment on them, simply in an effort to pick up some traffic from that service. I have certainly seen the impact that can be had for one of my blogs when TechMeme links, so the incentive is clearly there.

What I'd love to see is a service that combines the best of all of these services -- call it a "meta memetracker" that pulls data from the existing sites. It would then aggregate it and perhaps even allow the user to custom weight the significance of different ones. For instance, I might like the automated power of TechMeme over the editor influenced New Netscape, or vice versa.

And ideally this new service would then be able to learn what I like to allow more effective use of my time in reviewing stories. For instance, it might factor in the blogs I read by allowing me to upload my OPML file. And based on which items I click on, it could help figure out which topics interest me most. And finally a way to mark content that I never want to see again.

Finally, I'd love the service to blend all of this with a great feed reader. That way I could effectively have one-stop shopping for my daily information gathering.

Any smart entrepreneurs out there up to the challenge?

Tags: memetracker, digg, netscape, techmeme, tailrank

Building a Better Company

Jason Caplain over at Southeast VC has a well-titled post Don't Build Your Company for the VCs.  He makes his point as follows:

Rather than building your company for the VCs, build your company for your customers and because YOU believe it can be a long term sustainable company.

I would add one additional point -- and it's one I tend to harp on, so I apologize.  But build a company to be a successful company, don't obsess about exit scenarios.  Good companies find the appropriate exit.  While you must not be afraid to sell or (if you're insane, given the current environment) IPO, you shouldn't build your business with that as your focus.

Sure, set up the right processes and procedures.  And get to know folks who could be potential acquirers, facillitators, or biz dev partners.  But never, ever lose sight of the need to build a strong, profitable business.

Boston Blogger Dinner July 12

I originally posted this on TechJots, but I imagine readers here may be interested as well:

I always knew I liked Shel Israel.  Now I know why: he's a Red Sox fan!

Seriously, though, he's going to be part of a blogger dinner in Boston on July 12 at 7 pm at Fire and Ice on Berkeley Street.  Hopefully, I'll be able to juggle my travel schedule to make it.

Boston Blogger Dinner July 12

I always knew I liked Shel Israel.  Now I know why: he's a Red Sox fan!

Seriously, though, he's going to be part of a blogger dinner in Boston on July 12 at 7 pm at Fire and Ice on Berkeley Street.  Hopefully, I'll be able to juggle my travel schedule to make it.

New Angel Investing Blog

I came across EnablingAngels today, a new blog dedicated to the role of angel investing in entrepreneurship.  The most recent post, "What do Angel Investors Want," that explores some of the questions angels generally ask.

Obviously angel investing is a leading interest of mine, especially on this blog.  EnablingAngels is definitely worth a look if you share those interests.

The Founders' Piece of the Pie

Matt McCall over at VC Confidential offers an interesting post on how founders should allocate equity for themselves, early employees, and friends and family investors.  He explores a couple of different methods that can be used and suggests how one might value stock or options grants in those days when there's really no product or revenue yet.

He also looks at circumstances where VC money may be used to help founders "take money off the table."  He notes that most VC's are not fond of the practice and do so typically in cases where the company is already turning a profit.  The concern in this scenario is the founder losing interest because he has already made at least a partial score on the company. 

Finally, he talks about the notion of accumulating IOU's for founder salaries.  Naturally, VC's want to see their money go for future growth, while some founders may have special circumstances that may require them to recoup some salary before a liquidity event.  Many first time founders, for instance, may not have the same cushion that a serial entrepreneur may be able to lean on.  Waiting for an exit could be especially painful financially for a founder with a family and no pre-existing nest egg, for instance.

Obviously all of these decisions depend on specific circumstances, but Matt's post should help founders think through the issues a bit.

Net Impact of the Netroots in the Midterm Elections

National Journal conducted a survey of 71 GOP and 65 Democrat "insiders."  Interestingly, 69 percent of the Democrats thought the netroots would help their party (as opposed to 0 percent feeling it would help the GOP and 31 percent thinking no significant impact).  OK, that much might be expected.  Democrats are optimistic about their chances and enthusiastic about the role online advocates play for them.

But the Republicans questioned were evenly split between whether it would help their party or the Democrats.  (15% vs. 14%, respectively)  On the whole these insiders felt that the netroots would have "no significant impact" on the midterms.

Both sides have demonstrated the ability to impact politics from the netroots level (ask Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, Trent Lott, and Howard Dean).  And the Democrat netroots are definitely shaping the 2008 presidential primary for their party by their bright line litmus test on Iraq.

It will be interesting to see how things play out.  In my view, the netroots of either party can have a significant impact on targeted issues and actions, but it is difficult to shift the outcome of elections.  The netroots do a great job of amplifying messaging among themselves and among many talking heads, but they don't have the same reach as talk radio or other media, for instance.

With the public relatively evenly split between the parties, elections come down to turnout.  The netroots don't yet have the ability to have that significant an impact in that regard, since most activities they undertake to stir up one side also aggravates the other, causing it to be a net wash.

It's differnet on issues, however, as they are never decided by popular votes.  Politicians are more likely to be responsive to the isolated echo chambers they pay attention to.  So a smaller number of voices can have a greater impact.

One thing to watch for, however, is whether the netroots may have an indirect impact on the midterms.  The vocal criticism of the netroots -- especially those hardliners who stomach no dissent -- could cause some politicians to adopt more hardline positions than they might otherwise.  This could, in turn, impact turnout by alienating (or in isolated cases energizing) potential voters. 

Learning by Publishing

Peter Rip has a lengthy post over on his blog (EarlyStageVC) about an investment he recently made. Now, the startup he talks may be interesting -- frankly I didn't have enough to go on from his description, but that's fine.

What really struck me was the following line: "I started blogging about mashups with the intention of learning-by-publishing."

That's much of the rationale I have for maintaining the blogs that I do. By writing about topics on my blogs, it forces me to pay a little more attention, read a little more, and in the end (hopefully) learn a bit more.

And when I learn more, I get more ideas that may help companies I've helped start or may give me an idea for The Next Big Thing.

Tags: vc, ideas, blogging

WOMBAT Conversations

I attend conferences more for the conversation and inspiration than for the panels.  So I was pleased over the past two days to meet a bunch of smart, interesting people. 

For example, last night at dinner I had the opportunity to sit next to Jim Nail of Cymfony. His company has recently gone through a rebranding effort centered around the concept of Influence 2.0 and they now have a blog and a forthcoming e-book of the same name.  He reports that other companies in the industry have received the effort warmly and some may participate in the public drafting process for the new book, using a wiki that Cymfony has created.  Jim has also been blogging about WOMBAT and he offers a number of interesting observations.

For much of the past two days I shared a table in the main ballroom with Stuart Sheldon of Coca-Cola.  He's a smart guy who understands word of mouth and technology, as well as the challenges facing major corporations in navigating these waters.  I couldn't help but notice that he seemed to be in high demand from other corporate execs who were comparing notes on how to effectively bring WOM techniques to their own companies.  In fact, there seemed to be considerable networking among the larger companies represented to make a concerted effort at sharing best practices and ethics guidelines.

And I shared a couple of breakfasts and a dinner with Erik Rabasca of phd, an agency in New York.  He "gets it" and had an interesting story about how he got to where he is today.  Turns out he actually toured as the guitar player in a band for several years before joining the agency rat race last year.  We had some great chats about online WOM strategy for on of his clients.

And there were countless other folks who I only got to spend a few minutes each with, but it all served to get my mind rolling and my creative juices flowing.  Who knows, I may just have to start another company!

WOMBAT Day 2

An action packed day today at the WOMBAT conference.  The highlight was probably the keynote by Naked Conversations authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.  This wasn't your usual high-tech group, so there were quite a few who knew of neither and by show of hands a majority seemed to not know that Scoble had decided to leave Microsoft.  Unlikely to see that response over at Supernova, I suspect.

Shel is a great storyteller and he did so with aplomb.  Scoble has great stories, too, though he rambled a bit -- and Shel at one point told him to stop talking so they could stay on schedule and engage the audience in a conversation.  True to form, Scoble launched into another anecdote as time was expiring and everyone chuckled.

I think they did a nice job of bringing home the power of the blogosphere to the audience -- less with facts and figures as other panelists did, but more through the power of a story. 

Apart from the Naked Conversations keynote, most of the day was devoted to breakout sessions, so I only saw a small fraction of everything that went on.  (And I confess to skipping the lunch keynote as well as the first afternoon breakout session in order to catch half of the Giants-Angels game.)

TiVo gave a good explanation of their Brand Ambassador contest.  (Though the most entertaining bit was that the guy who won turns out to be camera shy during live TV intereviews -- so they've had to cut back on using him for that.  He does apparently do well in conferences and other live events, just not with the red light glowing on the camera in front of him.)  And Fleishman Hillard and Clorox did a nice job of explaining their grassroots marketing campaign for Glad Press 'n Seal wrap.

WOMBAT Day 1

I attended the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's WOMBAT conference today in San Francisco.  Day 1 had a number of good panels, including one which covered some research about how people respond to word of mouth recommendations and whether online opinion matters.  Interestingly, the research suggested that about 90% of word of mouth recommendations come in offline conversations. 

I would be interested to see some follow-up to determine the origin of the recommendation.  In other words, did the person making the recommendation originally learn about the product online.

The most engaging panel was one on how to interact with bloggers.  As readers of this blog know, this is a topic near and dear to my heart.  Chris Shipley of Guideware (who produces the BlogOn conference as well as DEMO) used herself as a case study.  She relayed the story about how last year BlogOn denied a free pass to BL Ochman, a prominent PR blogger, and BL took BlogOn and their PR agency to task.  In particular, BL was outraged that the agency, Porter Novelli, did not have any official blogs and therefore must be unqualified to engage in blogger relations.  Chris explained how she handled the "crisis," especially with another blogger who picked up BL's post and said Chris was "evil."  Within 4 hours, the other blogger (Tara Hunt), had learned more and decided Chris was no longer evil and posted as much on her blog.

The audience really took to this story and a good conversation ensued.

Off to dinner now.  Will provide a recap of tomorrow's sessions when time permits.  (Though I should note I will miss lunch to see at least a couple hours of the San Francisco Giants game -- hey, they're playing at lunchtime and I've never been to AT&T Park.)  I do plan to hear from Shel Israel and Robert Scoble as they discuss Naked Conversations.

For those who want more, including a recap of lots of ethics discussions, WOMMA is blogging the event as are others.

Biz Plans with a Side of NDA

Rick Segal notes that some entrepreneurs are getting more creative with NDA's.  As most know, VC's, angels, and other serious investors won't sign NDA's before looking at a business plan.  It's just way too complicated.  The message is: you want our money, you have to trust us.

Unfortunately, paranoid entrepreneurs don't like that.  So some are now including an NDA when they send a plan to an investor.

Last week I saw the most creative attempt yet.  After reading a business plan given to me by an entrepreneur last week at an angel conference, I note a page of gobbledygook at the beginning that effectively said "by reading this you have agreed to this NDA" -- no request for a signature even. 

Enough already.  Entrepreneurs need to understand that investors aren't looking to steal ideas, but we see enough that we'd be foolish to sign such a document.  Too much exposure.  And at the end of the day it all comes down to execution anyway. 

Advice for Angels

Jeff Cornwall from the Belmont University Center for Entrepreneurship in Tennessee provides a good summary of a Fortune Small Business article providing advice to budding angel investors.  In short:

• Don't go it alone
• Follow your passion
• Locate the exit
• Befriend the vultures (the VC's)

To me, all rules are meant to be broken, but there is some merit to each of these.  A few small points I'd make.  First, the FSB article suggests not investing alone or part of a small group because you can become too "emotional" about deals.  In my view, a healthy dose of emotion is good for angels.  Often angels bring more to the table than their wallets and to look at things purely from a financial investment standpoint overlooks this.

In fact, the next advice, to follow one's passion seems to contradict the author's point a bit.  Nevertheless, the point is well taken that small groups face challenges that larger groups do not.  It's a factor to weigh.

The other point I take some issue with is that of exits.  I believe that exit strategies are overblown when discussing investments.  The entrepreneur and the investor should be of like mind regarding an exit (you don't want to invest in a company to find out the entrepreneur is looking for a "lifestyle company" and you're looking to cash out big).  But the focus needs to be on growing a good business, making the right contacts, and not being afraid to take the right exit.  Making it all about the exit leads to bad decisions.

Questions Angels Ask

An entrepreneur who participated in the ycombinator winter program (for those of you not familiar with it, it's an interesting model that I'll likely write about more down the road), offers a list of the top 10 questions asked during "Angel Day."  Worth a read, though I don't agree with all of the conclusions about the merit of each question.

Angels in Colorado

ColoradoStartups.com has an excellent report on their viewing of the MIT Enterprise Forum "Talk to An Angel" event that I attended in person this week.  They viewed the discussion via satellite and then had a local discussion along the same lines.

In particular, the Colorado event seems to have had a great discussion about angel expectations that built upon what the panel in Cambridge talked about.  And a debate about whether it makes sense to pay a quality CEO to come in and run a startup.

Definitely a worthwhile read for anyone interested in angel investing -- from either side of the fence.

links for 2006-06-11

• Groking Wikipedia (continued)
  (tags: chipsreading)
• Should I quit my venture job?
  (tags: chipsreading)

Scoble Exit Creates Opportunity

Over at one of my other blogs, TechJots, I note that the reported exit of Robert Scoble from Microsoft creates some opportunities.  I thought readers of this blog might find it interesting as well.

Scoble Exit Creates Opportunity

Tom Foremski reports that Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft and moving to Silicon Valley to be part of Podtech.net.  Scoble has yet to confirm this on his own blog, but this news creates a serious opportunity for others within the Microsoft organziation to step up and grab the limelight.  Filling the void will be a challenge, but if the lessons of Scoble are learned, one or more other thought leaders at Microsoft could help themselves and the company.

Existing leaders within Microsoft may also have an opportunity to step up their activity and take more of a leadership role in the blogosphere.  One who comes to mind and would have instant credibility with bloggers is Ray Ozzie.  His blog posts since moving to Microsoft have been more on the vision level and he can't approach Scoble in terms of volume and breadth, but if he engages in more frequent, candid conversations it could go a long way toward maintaining credibility for the company in the blogosphere.

This certainly bears watching.

MIT's "Talk to an Angel" Panel

Last night I attended the MIT Enterprise Forum's "Talk to an Angel" panel discussion.  The talk was led by James Geshwiler of CommonAngels in Boston.  The panelists were John May, Chairman of the Angel Capital Association and Managing Partner of New Vantage Group in the DC-area, Cynthia Fisher of BioMed 20/20 Technologies, David Friend of online backup provider Carbonite, and Bob Greene of Contour Venture Partners.

Bob was the butt of many good-natured jabs since he was there wearing his hat as a current VC and former angel.  Quite a lot of time was spent differentiating between the two investment groups, though Bob suggested a more apt differentiator is institutional vs. individual money.  I think that point of view has some merit, as some of the larger angel groups seem to come closer to VC firms in how they operate, both before and after a deal.

Individual angels -- lone rangers as one panelist put it -- often get involved for more than pure financial interests, which is something that drives VC's as they have a fiduciary responsibility to their limted partners to maximize the ROI.

The entrepreneur panelists helped discuss the importance of good communication with all investors to ensure that expectations are shared and there are no surprises. 

Prior to the panel, there was a period for networking. Unfortunately, the rains disturbed the plans to mingle outside and instead everyone was crammed in to the foyer of the auditorium building, which could have used some air conditioning.  Nevertheless there were lots of smart, ambitious people milling around. 

In an interesting twist, the name badges were color coded to indicate who was an entrepreneur and who was an investor (or as one attendee put it to me before we had our badges -- "are you looking for money or do you have it?").  Another angel and I didn't understand this until about two-thirds of the way through the reception.  We were both having a hard time understanding why we seemed so popular (it isn't as though we were two cool-looking guys impressing people with our charm and good looks).  Finally, an entrepreneur explained the color coding to us and we understood why were watching people come up to us like moths to a flame.

Overall it was a useful and enjoyable event.  I look forward to similar ones from the MIT Enterprise Forum in the future.  (For those interested in seeing the discussion, I believe at some point the video of the event will be available online here.)

UPDATE: Samuel Chow offers his own summary of the event.

Google Hysteria Strikes Again

Bloggers love to talk about Google.  Just ask Technorati.  The leading blog search engine returns 4,133,692 results for Google, 3,213,513 for Yahoo, and 1,848,899 for Microsoft.  Heck, poor ol' Paris Hilton only generates 220,173 mentions.  (Of course, as is often the case, Technorati flaked out and at one point insisted there were no matches for Yahoo.  A page reload fixed that.)

This week the chatter is all about Google spreadsheets.  And how it either means the end of Google because they've wandered so far away from their core mission.  Or how it means the end of Microsoft because they Google will squash Redmond like a bug.  Heck, even the Wall Street Journal online sent out a breaking news email to announce Google's Spreadsheet.  Breaking news?

Please, everyone, let's get a grip. 

"Could this be the beginning of the end for Microsoft?" Not likely.  Best estimates are that less than half of the U.S. population accesses the Internet by a broadband connection.  Forrester Research predicts it will jump up to 62 percent -- in 2010.  So right there you are only looking at half the country being able to really take advantage of Google Spreadsheet, Writely, and similar products.

Second, a significant portion of the half of the country that uses broadband, probably uses Microsoft Office products primarily for a work environment.  How many companies do you know who are going to allow their internal data -- the kind of stuff that finds its way into many spreadsheets -- to travel out over the Internet?  Not many.

And what of business travelers?  I know JetBlue is working to put WiFi in the air, but do you really want to depend on the reliability of that service to be able to work on a cross country flight?  And what of anyone who flies another airline?  Heck, most airlines can't keep their bathrooms and coffee pots working correctly, so why should we think the WiFi would be different?

Now, I'm not knocking all online apps.  There's certainly a place for them.  Even Google Spreadsheet (well, at least Writely.  I'm highly skeptical of the Spreadsheet app because I see a major disconnect between the users of such products and the problems I noted above -- when was the last time your Grandma created a spreadsheet anyway?). 

But it is a difficult leap to gain serious market penetration by taking a desktop app and moving it to the Web 2.0 world.

All this said, it ain't the end of Google by a longshot.  Have they wandered off into the wilderness?  Maybe.  But it's too early for those of us not privy to their internal strategy discussions to know for sure.  Certainly they have focused little on search of late and have gotten more deeply into other arenas.  And a number of folks have questioned how much growth is still possible in the PPC search ad model. 

But we need to wait and see what's going to happen.  Getting wound up in hysteria over Google -- pro or con makes no sense.  Let's all sit back and breathe -- and maybe explore other things to write about?

UPDATE: Despite the overreaction by many, there are thoughtful posts out there.  Mike Arrington over at TechCrunch has a good take on recent Google developments along with links to other Google "rants," including Om Malik ("Is Google Wasting Its Genius Cycles?") and Paul Kedrosky ("Where Microsoft used to ruin markets by taking all the revenues to itself, Google takes a nuclear winter approach wherein it ruins markets by freezing them and then cutting revenues to zero.")

The Underlooked Browser: Maxthon

For the past few months I've been hooked on a new browser: Maxthon.  It's actually been around a while but has been underappreciated.  It used to be known as MyIE2 and from what I gather it has more popularity overseas than it does here in America.

I had been hooked on Firefox for the past year, but I became increasingly frustrated that Firefox didn't render pages the same as IE.  Now, the W3C purists will tell me that's because Microsoft doesn't stick to standards.  But a lot of what they offer is very appealing to consumers and developers, so why should they stick to standards that don't allow the innovation to continue at a rapid pace? 

In any event, that's a debate for another day. 

The nice thing about Maxthon is that it actually uses the IE engine to render pages, which means you'll have a pleasant user experience on most sites.  It handles tabs very nicely and even offers to restore the content of tabs when you re-open the browser (say when some silly HP printer software forces you to reboot). 

I have tried the IE7 beta and it just doesn't deal with tabs the way that Firefox and Maxthon do.  Specifically, when I open a link from Outlook (which I do constantly throughout the day), IE7 opens a new browser.  I want a new tab, just as Firefox and Maxthon do.  Unfortunately, I have found no way to do this.

So if you want IE quality rendering with efficient tab handling, check out Maxthon.

SlingPlayer Mobile Impresses

I'm a SlingBox addict.  Because I'm a Red Sox fanatic.  And I travel about half the week to places where you can't just put the TV on and watch the game. 

But I've always been forced to choose between sitting in the hotel room watching the game on my laptop or going out to enjoy a nice meal in one of the fine restaurants in whichever city I happen to be in that night. 

Until about a month ago when SlingMedia came out with the SlingPlayer Mobile.  This nifty little app pairs nicely with my Treo 700w using Verizon's speedy EVDO service.  Granted, the screen is small, but I can still read the score (mostly) on that thin bar that runs across the top of most sporting events now.  Qaulity is very good.  Very few dropped frames and the audio is quite clear.

It has certainly become a wow factor for whomever I'm dining with (and often just someone I'm sitting near at another table or an adjacent barstool). 

I highly recommend the SlingBox and the SlingPlayer Mobile for any entrepreneur who spends too much time on the road and not enough time keeping up with the local teams.

Welcome to TechJots

TechJots focuses on high-tech entrepreneurship.  It will be a mix of commentary, product reviews, company profiles, interviews, and links to interesting news.  Have a tip?  Share it with us.

Who am I?  I'm Chip Griffin and I am a serial entrepreneur.  I've successfully started several companies, including CustomScoop and NetVocates.  It all started in 1998 when I formed Griffin Strategy Group, a public affairs consulting firm that specialized in helping organizations and candidates communicate online.  In all, I've been a founder of 5 companies in the past 8 years -- and I've got a few more in the pipeline itching to come out. 

I have a keen interest in seeing what's going on -- seeing great ideas, learning from innovators and entrepreneurs.  And I have a special affection for anyone doing that outside of Silicon Valley -- not that I have anything against my friends in California, but I think plenty of people are already covering that region.  There's less of a spotlight on the East Coast and I want to add my efforts to the mix. 

Hopefully this blog will serve as a resource for others who share these passions. 

After all, why should Silicon Valley have all the fun?

About NetVocates

I took most of the day off yesterday to spend time with my family – and was I surprised to see my inbox when I got back to it! As a fellow blogger, I understand the importance of a fast, accurate response to issues raised in the blogs. Unfortunately, in a case of the cobbler’s family not having good shoes, I haven’t done enough to monitor what has been said online about me and some of the companies I am involved with!

A few blogs have questioned the relationship between two companies I am involved with: CustomScoop and NetVocates. Rather than speculation, I want to take a moment to share with my readers a little information:

1. CustomScoop and NetVocates are entirely different companies. I am a founder of both, but the companies have entirely different missions. There are different people involved, different clients, and different technology.

2. CustomScoop provides an online news clipping service – and has since 2000. I am no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of this company, although I am still an investor.

3. NetVocates was founded earlier this year to provide online analysis and advocacy services to clients. What does this mean? NetVocates gathers data about blog posts of interest to its clients, uses proprietary software to blend multiple data sources and electronically sort the information. We then have a staff of experts who review the information to provide reports to clients outlining trends in the blogosphere of interest to our clients.

4. For some – but not all – clients, NetVocates works to develop advocacy programs. These programs can take many different forms – steps the client might take to communicate more proactively through its own blog, to work with bloggers to provide information on products and issues, or to address misinformation published in blogs.

5. We have a few basic principles we ask all of our staff and the activists we work with to operate under. First, we ask our activists to only engage on issues they actually believe in. Second, we ask everyone not to lie about anything. Third, we ask our activists not to create multiple online personalities to engage in blogosphere conversations.

6. Have we ever made mistakes? Sure. Do we learn from them? You bet. So does everyone else in this new world of reaching out to bloggers. Most firms that are navigating these waters hit a rock or two, and we haven’t been (and won’t be) any different. All we can promise to do is watch out for rocks and communicate clearly when we hit one.

7. “You say who you're speaking for.” That’s the draft standard proposed by WOMMA for this industry and that’s the policy NetVocates will enforce with its staff and activists. Period.

I know I’ve been a bit verbose, but I wanted to make sure I hit all the key points I had seen in various posts. Hopefully this helps answer the questions that have been raised.

(P.S. Google is a great tool, but there are other people named Chip Griffin out there. For instance, I wouldn’t know how to make a knife if my life depended on it.)