blue shift

making peach flavored kool-aid

Last night I attended the Atlanta Web Entrepreneur's Meetup on the state of Atlanta's Startup Ecosystem. Scott Burkett and Mike Blake of StartupLounge presented and followed with a call to action and open discussion on their proposal to strengthen this community.

Let me back up three years. In 2006 I was working with Sherry Heyl at What a Concept! (now Concept Hub). It was through Sherry that I began to receive an introduction and crash course into the Atlanta business community: who's who, how it operated, etc. To my dismay I saw a community that was very much traditional business with no clue about social media or how it was changing the way business works at fundamental levels. Having been primarily exposed to Silicon Valley's culture, it was a bit of a shock to me to meet the 20th century in 2006. And there was barely a startup community to speak of: at least not one I would recognize.

Since then, social media has taken over Atlanta (as it has the rest of the world), and there seems to be exponentially more activity as individuals all over the city have been empowered by social media and the relationships they've been able to build as a result.

I've been on a bit of a sabbatical for the past year and a half and have only recently returned to the local 'startup scene' to see what's new. And what I see is fantastic! Not only is there a growing community of entrepreneurs, it seems there is a conversation that has picked up critical mass about taking it to the next level! Leading of course to last night's discussion where Scott and Mike pitched their vision for how we can take this community to the next level: The 'Atlanta Startup Cloud'.

For more of a summary on last night's event check out @urvaksh's ABC article. (Let me know if there are other summary blog posts I can add here.)

There were a number of ideas flying last night about building an online community space, mentorship, education, coworking, culture, legal concerns, finding resources, and a number of other topics. What really resonated with me was the fact that what was being proposed was creating some new cultural patterns in Atlanta.

As I said during the discussion, we need to create our own flavor of kool-aid. (Peach kool-aid!) We're not Silicon Valley, so we have to discover what works for us. And beyond leadership in education and mentorship within the community, we need to introduce some straight up indoctrination!

If a new entrepreneur approaches someone plugged into the 'Atlanta Startup Cloud', that person should be able to give them a quick rundown of this city works and how they can both contribute to and gain from the community.

Last night I brought up the topic of core values, and yes there were some eyes rolling. (Eyes always roll!) But core values are none the less important. Last night was a meeting about leadership, and it's up to everyone who has an interest in growing the Atlanta startup ecosystem to take up the burden of leadership. In order for this to be successful, a discussion of core values must be had. While discussing this with a few people last night, a joke was cracked about creating a mission statement for this project. I loved Scott's reply: it's not a mission statement that's needed, but a manifesto!

So, what is the manifesto for the Atlanta Startup Cloud? How should the entrepreneurial community in this city operate, and how can each of us as individuals, budding startups, and support organizations within this ecosystem contribute towards the success of all of us? What are the values that are going to drive this thing, and propel this discussion to the next level of action?

health update

In short for those who scare easily, I'm healthy!! Yay. :)

In longer form:

As my Twitter followers know, I had another surgery on my vocal chords last week. The quality of my voice had been progressively getting worse, and it was becoming more and more difficult to make actual vocal sounds in the midrange of my voice which is usually where I speak from. Swallowing also felt weird. After visiting my ENT (Dr. Koriwchak) and having the obligatory laryngoscope shoved down my throat, he informed me that there was another growth keeping my left vocal chord from vibrating. Great. (Luckily, nothing restricting my breathing pathway.)

So surgery #32 was had last Tuesday! And I must say, this was one of the more fun ones. St. Joseph's hospital has a new protocol in place for keeping blood circulating in the legs during surgery. Basically, they give you foot messaging balloon type things that go on your legs. During surgery, they inflate. And they're alot of fun.

Post-op was this week, and it turns out that I had a cluster of Papillomas growing both above and below my false chord and only a very small one on my left vocal chord. (This is a good thing.)

Given that the last three surgeries have had less than a year between them, I asked if this might indicate an increase in the cursed abnormal growth. His response was that Papillomas are irregularly irregular in growth and we should only worry and think about doing something different if they start growing in under six months.

So, I should be good for at least another year or more. (Yay!)

In other health news, I went for a physical with my pcp this week. I haven't had one in a few years, so I thought it would be a good idea. A blip came up with my blood pressure, but a second test came back at normal levels (Same happened in the hospital last week). Lab results came back, and everything's normal save my triglyceride levels which are slightly elevated but not in above average risky range. Most likely this means I should exercise a little and lose like five pounds or something. 

It could also mean that my caloric intake this past week has been much higher than I've been able to burn due to my recovery from surgery diet which has included more cheeseburgers in a single week than I can ever remember eating at any other time in my life. 

Note to self: When going in for a physical, make sure you do so during a time which reflects your regular diet.

coming out of hiding

I've kinda been in hiding for the past year and a half. I haven't gone into complete seclusion as my friends on Twitter and Facebook know, but I consider those public private spaces. Or perhaps I should say public personal spaces. The space I've been avoiding is the public sphere: which is a public public space.

And the reason for this is that I've needed my own space to trek through and figure things out. At some point I realized that my life was headed exactly where I had been directing it, but that place was somewhere I didn't necessarily want to go anymore. Sometimes you've gotta pull a full stop in order to turn the ship around. While figuring things out, I've been working towards an important milestone. I'm within three credit hours of having an Associates of Science in Psychology: a milestone I'll meet by the end of the summer!

What is an AS in Psych good for? Besides my own personal interest, I've been strongly considering continuing my formal education towards an engineering degree focused on human-computer-human interaction. It comes naturally to me and a bit of code experience + background in playing with data would grant me a much greater degree of autonomy in starting a number of the entrepreneurial projects that are constantly passing through my mind.

I still don't actually know where I'm headed at this point, but I have some fresh ideas and a few new near-term projects on my plate. I feel I'm ready to start talking in public again.

And for those of you who know me well may be wondering, yes I'm being a bit of a tease. ;) More as the summer progresses!

Give One Get One and be a Hero!

I finally got around to watching Heroes recently. I love it!

It definitely resonates with me personally because of my drive to make the world a better place. The discussions on purpose, feeling like you're "meant to do something to make a difference," the idea that you don't need superhuman powers to be a hero... I feel very strongly about these ideas and try and bring similar feelings out of the people I meet day to day. There's just too much apathy in America the world today... and I don't think we can afford that.

Tara Hunt has also been watching Heroes and thinking along similar lines. She wrote a blog post about why the world needs Heroes and where they are.

And while we're at it, Rob Cottingham of Social Signal recently wrote a post titled: "Can Web 2.0 save the world?"

Both come from a similar background as myself in thinking about the world changing potential of Web 2.0. But social media is just a tool. It's still up to us to decide how we want to use our new found and growing powers.

Lastly, Masi Oka (Hiro Nakamura of Heroes who bends space and time!) did a commercial for the One Laptop Per Child Project!

From the site:

Masi Oka speaks on behalf of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Foundation regarding the Give One Get One opportunity. 

Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give One Get One Program for a brief window of time in North America. For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home.

For more information, please call 1-877-70-LAPTOP or visit http://www.laptopgiving.org/

This is an exciting and potentially world changing project that I've been a big fan of for awhile. If any of you become a part of this program and give a laptop, let me know so I can shake your hand/give you a hug/buy you a beer(pick one)!