The Blogo’Shawn

Been keeping busy, so much so that I’ll just point to my latest Yahoo Local post - a shortcut I know, but between keeping abreast of all my social networks and events, sometimes I overlook the need to post in my own personal blog!

Local has made great strides since re-launch…our review coverage on businesses has leaped to new heights and the quality and length or reviews has improved dramatically - the revamped UI has been a boon, indeed.

In other news, there are some cool geek-girl events afoot. I am to participate in a Women in Technology panel about leadership at Yahoo on the 28th in 2MC-2 at 2PM…not sure if it’s open to the public, but I mention it to underscore that there are women techies in the company who have decided to band together and inspire each other. Also, a Girl Geek dinner to occur 1/31 at Google - looks like I’ll finally be sampling the fabled cafeteria’s wares.

Well I’m back…have had my head to the ground making fundamental changes. After an extended, listless search, I have landed an apartment in Menlo Park. Yes, I succumbed to the horrors of daily commuting back-and-forth from SF to the South Bay and I have slagged over three hours daily on trains, shuttles, and automobiles. Not worth it at all! I had yearned to get this done sooner but reality was that the rental market is beyond insane at the moment. That I got a decent apartment at a reasonable price exactly where I wanted it is a bit of a coup too, especially since I had to go through Craigslist, which is definitely *not* the channel of choice right now during summertime in a brisk economy when folks are choosing to rent in droves rather than buy. Every showing I went to was mobbed with people. Cue the dot-com flashbacks! Anyway, it’s still sinking in that I don’t need to reflexively hunt like a bird-of-prey anymore. The plan is to make the moving trek no later than the coming Monday. Lots of packing *sigh*. But the shorter commute to work will ultimately be gained. And I may actually regain a social life on week nights - hurrah!

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More exciting news is that I participated in my first internal hack day for the Local LMC division! I had been itching to do this since I first joined Yahoo. Best of all, besides the fulfillment of a great effort made, my team wound up as a finalist…and then we proceeded to win! I am thrilled because it really did take concerted effort to pull together and coordinate. I had a dedicated project to lead in short-order and I had an enjoyable time hammering out the requirements, interaction, and priorities with the two engineers over the course of the hack and finals days. I bestowed the name “NewsDrive” on the hack, and derived the messaging for it. I also had the pleasure of delivering the presentation for finals judging. Compacting the essentials into an effective four-minute presentation certainly took some preparation, but it came off well in the end. I see now how addictive and all-consuming hack days can be, and good thing - they really got my creative juices flowing and I anticipate the next one which isn’t all that far away.

One more thing of note: I attended the Women 2.0 mixer in Atherton at Minti founder Rachel Cook’s abode. It was a fantastic occasion and I have to hand it to Rachel for hosting so soon after moving to live in America! Now that’s dedication to forwarding entrepreneurism. Want to mention that Katherine Barr gave an insightful presentation on negotiation and really got me thinking about it more consciously. Also the founders of Women 2.0 are wonderful as well and I am amazed by how they have forwarded the organization in such short order. I look forward to seeing what’s brewing up for August. I hope there are more events on the Peninsula in relaxed settings such as this last one - so much easier to talk lucidly outside of bar venues where so many professional mixers wind up.

The ultimate global BarCamp is virtual: SecondLife BarCamp.
One of the distinct draws of a virtual environment like Second Life is the ability to interact with folks from all over the globe and gain new perspectives. Already SecondLife has been leveraged as a corollary participation channel to conferences such as last summer’s Vloggercon and an initial BarCamp already took place some months ago. With advance word and a date set for May 2007, it ought to be interesting to see how many more people congregate to share knowledge in SecondLife!

Hats off to Yahoo! for putting forth a fantastic event for coders, Yahoo! Hack Day!! It far surpassed anything I was expecting and I truly admired the dedication and openness of the employees who worked so tirelessly to make this happen in short order. They made us feel very assisted and at ease. I believe I got a really good gander at the Yahoo! spirit and the kind of people drawn to work there. Not to mention, I realized just how many Yahooligans I already knew from previous tech soirees…many of them were in motion yesterday, assuring that the event was a success.

And might I say, this was anything but a sedate event. Of course, the day culminated with the star power of Beck whose concert just blew my socks off for sheer entertainment value.

I was roaring with delight between the Puppet versions of the band members mimicking their doppelgangers throughout the show (check out this vid clip shown during a break - hilarious!) and the frenetic gesticulations of the geekily-attired male go-go dancer. Beck really got us fired up - so much so that towards the end, moshing erupted. Think about that for a sec! How often do you witness moshing hackers on the Yahoo! grounds. I think not often!

More so, though, there was such a sense of camraderie and meeting of minds. I easily met scads of interesting and intelligent people, many of whom are undertaking startup projects like me. There was much talk about our endeavors and ideas in the context of Yahoo APIs and beyond. I even met a contingent of Chicagoans, some of whom I’d known only through their blogging and activities like Tech Social. Since Chicago is my home city, it was great seeing these folks face-to-face and representing!

Alas, I was not able to join in the hack contest itself due to work obligations today, but I am quite glad I got to participate yesterday in such a fine event and can only hope there will be more of these in the future…though I’m not sure how you could surpass what we just experienced! I also found some sessions quite informative as I am working up a map for one of my projects and needed some in-depth insight on the Maps API. I got my questions addressed and I also know who to turn too now at Yahoo! should I have further questions or requests…the Yahoo! Local team people on hand were quite approachable.

Truly an incredible event, Yahoo! I am bound to remember this one for a long time to come!

I show two interesting events for the upcoming Saturday so I will be roaming the Peninsula in search of great people & ideas:

BarCampStanford - This event is part of the larger BarCamp Earth campaign with simultaneous BarCamps across the world, so you too can share in the concentrated brain waves sweeping the planet. Most of all, it’s a reason to get smart folk assembled at Stanford University for a pow-wow. I’ll be in attendance on Saturday. If you too intend to come, do sign-up and be accounted for.

Also Saturday, Women 2.0 and Meetro host a poolside party mixer. Since this is just the sort of thing I’ve been yearning for since the BlogHer conference, I figure I should check it out if I get out of BarCamp in time. After all, I now associate pool + sun + food/drink + majority of women with a great mixer occasion.

And speaking of women in tech. Yesterday, I attended an SFWOW function. SFWOW, which stands for “San Francisco Women on the Web”, is an organization I participated in when I first landed in San Francisco. Unfortunately that was when the new economy was slumping in 2001, so I caught the tail-end of the glory days and went to an SFWOW mixer or two. Since then, SFWOW has been largely a useful mail list and F2F events less seldom. Last night, I did mix and mingle though and got the sense that revitalization is underway with more upcoming events in the pipeline. So I’m going to help out by proclaiming the advance word better via the events channels I’ve grown fond of using. Like I said, I was so infused by the BlogHer spirit that I want to see more mixers oriented towards women in tech and women professionals who will speak about their experiences.

And thus the next meeting of SFWOW tech women will be coming up soon at 6PM on Tuesday, September 5th, in the Finiancial District of San Francisco with a panel focus on email marketing tips and tricks. The venue, London Wine Bar, is one I know very well and recommend enthusiastically since I have utilized it many times over for my own nefarious event purposes. It’s a great place to drink, mingle, and carry on conversation without competing noise, and the wines are terribly nice as well! I posted it as an Upcoming event so chime in there if you’ll be coming.

As an aside, let me state that I am seven days deep into the rather extreme Master Cleanse Lemonade Diet, or my special variation which still allows small quantities of wine and coffee for sanity’s sake. So put aromatic food in my immediate vicinity and I’m likely to bite someone’s head off. I don’t normally try this sort of drastic food restriction thing, but it seemed like an interesting experiment to undertake and so far, yes, my waistline has shrunk. Already I have foregone dinners and some food gatherings in this week but, naturally, this is shaping up to be a BBQ-centric, food and drink kind of weekend. I’m supposed to end this diet some time between Monday and Wednesday, though temptation beckons from every side! I must hold fast, yes.

Did I already vow not to focus on tech mixers in the Bay Area?  Well scratch that!  I can’t avoid them, and they seem to pepper my weekly schedule with surprising frequency!  Simply put, there have been a preponderance of mixers and doings to attend in these last weeks, enough to the point that my response to the introductory challenge of “what I do” is starting to trip gaily off my tongue without much effort.

 Well last week was splendid.  It brought another STIRR mixer and an interesting mix of people to approach.  I was especially enchanted with some folks from the UK (Jackie Danicki, the SpannerWorks team) who apprised me of the state of Web2.0 abroad.  Their take seems to be that it is lagging in comparison to the Bay Area, but then that’s a generalization that applies to many places, non?  What that really signifies, though, is that companies like SpannerWorks have a lead advantage in not only providing services, but educating companies on new media technologies like blogging.  Sounds like opportunity to me, especially since those who have held out on learning about new developments in communication are coming around now.  Anyway, I do have a fondness for interacting with Europeans - yes, I confess to being a Europhile.  Earlier last week, I got to also chat with some of the Wordpress developers hailing from abroad at WordCamp - the WordPress team is distributed and this was the first time they were assembled together in the same place to meet in real-life.  Anyway, meeting so many engaging Europeans in tech lately has poignantly reminded me of my ultimate desire to work abroad in technology, preferribly in the UK which is my #1 travel destination.  Doubtless, I impressed that theme on some of those people I met last week too, LOL!

Ah well that’s just a little update on the vanguard of high tech society in the Valley.  I am saddened to say that the invite passed me by for the killer mixer of the week, the upcoming TechCrunch party.  I seem to have a penchant for taking blog breaks right about when everyone’s queuing up weeks in advance for the next one of these. 

Here I am up bright and early to say that I really enjoyed BlogHer. I knew I probably would, but the day’s final panel and cocktail party really surpassed expectations. Among others, I was pleased to hear Mena Trott (Six Apart) and Arianna Huffington during the closing session in a packed ballroom setting. What especially struck me was how personal and upfront they were in relating their experiences regarding a substantial ground of, not just tech and politics, but life at large. I was very impressed with their candor and what they shared with us - the talk was fairly intimate at times which was a wonderful change of pace.

Also I met some wonderful women I had seen in passing, but who I had wanted to meet more in-depth. BlogHer provided a casual, friendly environment for just that. I love meeting intelligent women undertaking significant initiatives in the tech space, and so I met some impressive ladies tonight one-on-one. In particular I want to point out Joanne Wan from the STIRR network. She, along with her partners, are working extensively to bring about a truly vibrant, emerging technology networking mixer in Palo Alto that i just had the pleasure to attend a few weeks ago. Check it out, next on Wednesday, August 9th!

Also, I have an admission to make. i have had an extremely technical education and career experience, but it has emphasized the logical, programmatic over business survival skills. I am yet endeavoring to raise my entrepreneurial pluck to the degree I desire. I have strong instincts within me and I have been sitting on a few startup ideas. That part is not unique to the Bay Area, but I do gain significant inspiration from strong female role models who light the way ahead. Not unreasonable, right? Honestly, I haven’t had the opportunity yet to talk to many female founders in tech. I don’t think I realized how vital that is until tonight when by serendipity I met CEO and founder Tracy Sheridan from Waxxi (recently blogged about in TechCrunch). We had an insightful conversation and I am impressed by her interactive podcast product and also with her as a person who is following her passion and steering her own ship ably. It’s amazing how empowering it is interacting with someone who is confidently pursuing her business idea. Very much so! I wish there was an accessible unconference/gathering of women tech entreprenuers, VCs, and vital connectors. That would be my idea of a primo conference, and admittedly I got a taste of that at BlogHer! Strong women doing it well!

I cannot resist also mentioning that Arianna Huffington was a stunner. She is a wonderful, engaging dynamo on stage and an approachable, gracious person off-stage. Check out her insights and overview of politics on blog and also she has an upcoming book about to be distributed! I figure she knows her stuff regarding effective life strategies, oh yes!

As an addendum, I am inspired to begin covering more personal career developments and revelations emanating out of my work as a consultant. I will have to be somewhat discreet and guarded due to these companies being more or less at a stealth or beta start stage but I should be able to generalize somewhat to points and practice principles. So please stay tuned - I vow to cover more than just tech conferences! Just needed to warm up the blog-writing muscles first!

Tomorrow (Saturday) I will be headed way down south to San Jose for the BlogHer conference. This day will be primarily geared towards the female persuasion and I think it will be interesting to have the gender equation slew the other way for a new media gathering. In fact, this will constitute the first mostly women event I’ve ever attended in the tech space - that gives me some pause for thought actually. It ought to be interesting and I hope a profound level of bonding takes place between participants. So far it’s looking like a jam-packed day with good conversation in store!

And in other un/conference news…Chicago just hosted it’s first BarCamp some weeks ago, which is wonderful to hear! Now then for those of you who are not tech types in Chicago, let me give a bit of background. Suffice it to say that I am quite perplexed and befuddled as to how the tech startup craze has managed to largely pass by Chicago. Chicago is my home city. It is a big metropolitan setting with tons of people, a good many technically-minded and a good many business-minded due to top-notch MBA programs like Northwestern and the University of Chicago. It has the infrastructure to host a cohesive tech startup community. So it peeves me when I find tech entrepreneurs who don’t know each other and rarely meet, if ever, amongst peers and mentors. That is much of the reason why moving back to Chicago was never quite enticing enough. I know how vital it is to have a supportive community of VCs, businesspeople, entrepreneurs, and tech folk. They have to be in place! How/why I wonder do other major and minor cities and towns surpass Chicago in this respect?! This is not right! Mostly all is splendid about Chicago (ok, well the weather could be better too), except this one niggling absence of collaborative entrepeneurial fire. It is the reason I meet so many Chicago “refugees” in the Bay Area. Anyway you get my drift, I’m sure. I expect a major city like Chicago to have the startup culture it deserves, like other places of similar and lesser size all across the U.S.
That’s why I am so pleased to see the Tech Cocktail emerge along with its adjunct Tech Social. Many kudos to Frank Gruber and Eric Olson for taking the initiative to get this off the ground and injecting some Boom2.0 enthusiasm and flair into the Chicago tech community. This initiative is such a needed step in the right direction. Alrighty I guess that’s my shout out to my home city - “Go team! Bring your people home to the promised land!”  So if you are in Chicagoland and reading this, I assume you are planning to attend these functions, ‘nuf said.

Today will be mashup camp in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum. I am excited to see what’s in store. Some proposed topics are of especial interest to me, in particular monetization models for mashup endeavors.  All these neat, wizzy mashups are cropping up ( I especially like the mobile 411sync collection), but I do wonder about the motivations of the contributors. Certainly, many are assembled with altruistic intentions, but what if the mashup takes off, then what does one expect the costs to be?  

 There seems to be no uniform, nor even approximately average, cost structure imposed by API providers for mashup applications that can potentially become commercial.  The stance seems to be to negotiate the fees down the line and hope for a fair situation.  So far, it’s perplexing to conceive of a business idea that progresses as 1) at the outset will probably be offered freely; 2) will gain traction and score an expanding user base; 3) at which point, one will have to negotiate with the provider companies about charges incurred by API use and hope to feasibly swing incurred costs while eking a profit. Isn’t that third step of factoring in costs supposed to procede the beginning of any bold new endeavor?? I hope we hear some concrete examples of how this step of arranging a mutually satisfactory balance manifests.

And so onwards to mashup camp, tally-ho!