Suzan Bond

Last year marked the first for TedxBoulder. Held at Chautauqua, I'd say it was a grand success with a wide variety of interesting topics and speakers. With all the work the organizers have done this year is shaping up to be just as if not even more stellar in its second outing.

The first TedxBoulder was pretty stellar. All of the talks were thought provoking. My favorite below. Even if you're a guy or think you're not interested in Harlequin Romance novels you need to watch this. You're welcome.

This year's theme is…

Time & Change

There will be talks, music and general As I've come to expect, there will likely be a few fun surprises through out the night. Maybe even a bit of free swag. And I hear there's going to be some fun after parties. 

I think there are still a few tickets left. Might want to get on that because  it's a Ted event and when Andrew Hyde and company are involved things tend to sell out.

Boulder is an outstanding place to live because of it's an entrepreneurial enclave. Being nestled up right against the Rocky Mountains doesn't suck either. Last night was a big one for my fair city with the premier of the TechStars show on Bloomberg TV.

TechStars feels like my family. Even though I'm not a graduate of the program, some of my clients are and I count many friends among their number. But that's not why it feels that way. There's something special about it that not every company has.

TechStars is more than a company.

It's a movement.

It's a community.

I commend David Cohen, Brad Feld, Jared Polis, Nicole Glaros, Andrew Hyde and the many mentors for creating such a strong community where the attitude is welcoming, generous and always fun where they never take themselves too seriously. Although they had turned down opportunities to film the program before, they finally took Bloomberg TV up on the opportunity during the inaugural NYC class this past winter. The result is a 6 week series.

Techstars hosted a fun night of mayhem at the Boulder Theatre to commemorate the premier. I was lucky enough to be able to attend. It was a lively evening of sound bites and on camera drama. Just before the premier we had a chance to see the hilarious short I'm a VC written by Jason Mendelson featuring the Foundry Group. If you haven't seen it before or are like me and never get tired of seeing Seth eat sushi out of a car window, here it is.

This tongue planted firmly in cheek short film is something I could watch over and over again. Um, and actually have.  If you look closely you can catch cameos by some of Boulder's local entrepreneurs. After that it was on to the first episode of TechStars.

Some of my favorite moments:

- "You're not here because of your ideas. We didn't fund your idea. We funded you." David Cohen and "At the core of what we're doing is picking people. We're betting on people." David Tisch. This is such a key element to the TechStars program and to entrepreneurship. It's also one of the things people are most likely to neglect to consider when forming their startup. Which is a bad idea. People first. Then the idea.

- When one of the companies likened David Cohen to The Oracle in The Matrix. My favorite movie of all time and a pretty apt way to describe him from my experience.

- Mentor whiplash. Not the first time I've heard that term but always makes me smile in recognition when I hear it. I'm hoping they talk more about it this season as learning how to be discerning with all the advice you get to discover patterns that emerge and make decisions to move your business forward is critical for entrepreneurs.

- Any moment when David Tisch is onscreen. That man is the king of the sound bite. I had heard that he is bright and very direct in his assessments. I also learned that he's funny. I can't wait to see more of him this season.

After the show premiered David Cohen and Brad Feld held a Q&A session. Their answers were incredibly insightful and of course, funny. Sadly I missed getting one of the funny moments of the night camera. It's right after the clip below. Let's just say the answer involved something about porn and knowing an entrepreneur when you see one. You had to be there.

Anyway, here's the clip which has some great advice for inspiring entrepreneurs who want to apply to the program. Apologies for the shaky camera work and any ensuing nausea. My arms were getting tired from holding up the camera at that point. Watch it for the advice.

ah, labor day. the gateway to fall and my favorite weekend of the year. i typically spend most of this weekend alone, reading, writing and reflecting on what i want for the rest of the year. this year's annual weekend wasn't too different than past years. well, maybe the first item was new. anyhow, here's what i did.

chased after a chicken to get it back in the coop.

discovered that i love gin. especially leopold's and caprock.

went yarn shopping for some amazing threads that soon will be made into something pretty and useful by the lovely and amazing sarah welch.

went out to a nice dinner wherein i proceeded to state that i would move for love. and then got called out for the truth. i would move for love. to new york, san francisco, london or paris. maybe denver.

had drinks with a dear friend.  attempted to take a self-portrait in the bathroom mirror. this i do at nearly every nice restaurant i go to when i remember to bring my phone in with me. one day i'll manage to take a good one.

watched a string 80's movies with nothing in common. dirty dancing, overboard, grease and blade runner. in truth, i only watched the first half of the last film, go depressed and then switched over to grease. one day i'll muster the spirits to watch the final half.

toured a craft brewery. and learned what a mash tun is. And that you're not supposed to go swimming in one.

slept in to a time that is way to late for someone over the age of 21.

read a book about a woman who traveled around the world to find true love and hoped i wouldn't have to do the same to find mine.

and…got back to blogging. put 3 more into the hopper. a post on this coming tomorrow.

what i didn't do

i didn't climb another 14er, yet. that's next weekend.

i didn't explore a new city. that will likely come later this year.

i didn't go to burning man. that may happen some time.

i didn't drink too much and regret it the next day. that's for another life time.

but i wasn't looking for these things. my quiet(ish) activities were the perfect to spend my favorite weekend.

so, how did you spend yours?

Organizers Jon Rossi, Dave Mayer and Matt Bernier did an amazing job of assembling a strong group of entrepreneurial folks to serve as mentors and judges during Startup Weekend Boulder 5. Although it was virtually impossible to record every single piece of insightful information these folks offered I tried to capture some of the best below. Good advice for all entrepreneurs and startup dreamers.

Micah Baldwin, Graphic.ly

• As Brad Feld says, there are lots of things you measure but only 2 that really matter. Figure out what they are and make sure everything relates back to them.

Duleepa Wijayawardhana, Empire Avenue

• Don't worry about failure. You'll succeed just because you try. Well, do.

Nicole Glaros, TechStars

• Know your market. Understand the pain points of your market and build around it. If you do, you will be successful.
  

• Be intellectually honest. Listen with unbiased ears. It's hard to do when someone tells you your baby is ugly but if you do this, you will be successful.
  

Eric Marcoullier, One True Fan

• If you have to fix a feature, get rid of it.

Ari Newman, Jive Software

• Simplify your model. As he said to one team, "There's so much I think my head just exploded."
  

• Consider going after a large market because it will be more forgiving when you fail. And you will.

Niel Robertson, Trada

• Make sure you build marketing metrics into the product right up front. Having a data-driven development approach will allow you to scale faster.

Jon Rossi, Startup Weekend Boulder

• Help each other out and keep the momentum going.

Chris Vieville, Snap Engage

• Build social gaming into your product but watch out for being too gimicky.

John Wright, Quick Left

• Find a product that cannot fail and that makes sense.

My own advice
When coming up with a name make sure it's available on all the necessary outlets (URL, Twitter, etc.) and grab it quickly. Make it easy for people to find you.

And finally…

Don't play at it. Play full out and do it for real.

Prompt: Photo – a present to yourself. Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

This photo was taken during a girl’s night out. It was a beautiful, warm and lots of fun. The camera on my Evo takes great photos but has trouble in dark situations. So, I decided to play with the new retro app I downloaded from the Droid store. I prefer to be behind the camera and rarely love any photos of me. This is my favorite of 2010 because…

1. It was taken by my dear friend Kit.

2. I *love* retro style things: photos, clothes, pretty baubles…if it’s vintage I’m pretty much gonna like it.

3. This photo reminds me of a very fun night with some of my favorite women:

• Cali Harris (one of the creators of Reverb 10)

• Kit who happens to be the co-owner of Atlas Purveyors one of my favorite coffee/tea shops
• The always hysterical Tiffany Sosa and…
• Miss Kate Brown, the fabulous Community Director for Daily Burn.

4. It captures in my essence. This is a very rare event. Kinda like seeing double rainbow. I usually make strange faces so my eyes look kinda freaky in photos. So the fact that my essence comes through is pretty special. It reminds me of my favorite saying. OK, I found it on a perfume ad but the message is solid & a good reminder…

All You Have To Be Is You

Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

2010 began for me with a relatively small community in my new city of Boulder. I had always wished to more. It quickly grew. In the past year I’ve discovered community with…

- The tech startup world of Boulder. I’d been out of that world for a while and it welcome surprise to find out that it still resonated and felt like home.

- Twitterers. I started following just a few and now have more than 700 (and growing) kindred spirits who enlighten, educate and entertain me daily.

- Boulder. Very livable city, great people, near the mountains. Enough said.

- The local fire community. I found this community by trying to support a dear friend during the massive Boulder Fire.  I’ve met incredible people who volunteer their time to fight fires and helped co-found an organization that raises money to support them.

- The dearest friends ever. Although I’ve lived in 5 cities, this is the place where I feel like I have the deepest and most connections I’ve ever had. Including Cali, the author of this prompt.

- Riders. As a baby snowboarder, they took me to the slopes and forced me to challenge myself–bringing out an inner athlete I didn’t know I had.

- Igniters. Geeky presentations that auto-advance every 15 seconds? I’m there. I was lucky enough to be able to speak at Ignite 10 & happily cheer on anyone with courage to speak in front of more than 900 people. If you have the chance–do it.

- My family. This year I really discovered how much I really love my family. How much I am like them. I’m very happy about that. My “other” family in Boulder is Atlas Purveyors. If you want to know where I am most days look here first. They not only know my name…they know my drink.

- Writers. Writing made a BIG comeback for me in 2010. Friends who are writers, 750words.com and Reverb 10 have provided a great home for this revival.

So those are (some) of my peeps. In the past I’ve had this habit of thinking that no one understands me. That I’m too unique. (A throwback from my tortured teenage days) If you hear this from me I give you full permission to put this post in my face as a reminder.

Yeah–I’d say I discovered Community with a capital C in 2010. Turns out it was pretty easy for me. This is a pretty big deal for someone who was convinced they never fit it. So, so, so looking forward to the deepening of this community and the new ones I create in 2011–especially with other tech entrepreneurs.

Day Two: What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

Loved the first prompt. This one is a bit more vexing. I don’t write for a living (completely) but do consider myself a writer. There doesn’t seem to be an eloquent reason for what doesn’t contribute to my writing so here is a free association list…

- Bathing

- Work

- Driving

- Tweeting

- Daydreaming

- Taking care of my dog

- Playing word scramble

- Lack of inspiration

- Worrying about what to write

- Socks (My feet get hot and cold all the time so I find myself taking them on and off all the time. It’s very distracting.)

- Trying to put together a perfect outline first (I actually typed outfit first–maybe that’s the real issue)

- Being afraid not of shitty first drafts a la Anne Lamott but of shitty final drafts

Silliness Aside

Some of those are frivolous (not the socks though–being comfortable is seriously important). If I were to narrow them down I’d say that getting inspired is the #1 distraction and #2 would be the outline.

So…I will eliminate the need for a good outline first. I will just write.

As for #1, writing and reading are actually my muses. I will put down the Netflix queue and pick up a book, a pen or my laptop and simply write.

I'm participating in a cool event called Reverb #10.  The goal of this event is to reflect on the past year in order to get clear about what you want to create in the coming year. Being a coach and into all this kind of cool stuff I thought this was a great opportunity to do something online that I normally do just for myself.  So I will be posting on my blog throughout the month of December. I hope you will find it inspiring and useful for you. If you'd like to follow along, feel free to sign up. You can also follow the blog of one of my dear friends, Cali Harris who is a writer, one of the creators of Reverb #10 and an all around cool chick. OK. So on to the first post for Reverb #10. Today I received the first prompt by email from Gwen Bell. Here's what it said. One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you're choosing that word. Now, imagine it's one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you? I love this prompt. One word is a concept I've been using for a number of years. For those of you who don't know–instead of resolutions I focus on a word for each year. This word is really a theme that I want to focus on for the coming year. My word for 2010 was Align. This year was all about aligning my life with myself, my inner most desires. Although I actually chose it at the end of 2009 (as is my tradition) I feel that it's still the right word. Alignment is something I feel. Because of this alignment I have attracted many wonderful things in my life that I hadn't been able to create. Here are just a few things I've done in the past year–all because I was practicing alignment. – Spoke in front of 900 people at Ignite Boulder. – Helped co-found Fourmile Heroes, an organization whose goal is to thank and provide funds for local Boulder firefighters. We've created a poster and stickers that are for sale with proceeds going to Boulder County Firefighters Association Fund. We also helped organize a parade to honor the firefighters of the Fourmile Fire (most of whom are volunteers).

- Learned how to snowboard–one of the things I wanted to do when I moved to CO. OK–still learning but I'm out there! Photo: My friend Lisa and I hitting slopes at Breck.

- Nabbed my very 1st 14er (actually two in one day) which I wrote about here. – Manifested great clients who are up to cool stuff. – Renewed my passion for travel. I visited: Topanga Canyon (L.A.), Telluride, Aspen, Santa Fe & Taos and Austin. And…I'm off to New York and the Bahamas. Photo: The venerable Continental Club in Austin. Yes–that's a bear singing.

- Started writing again after a very long 5 year absence. This culminated in this blog, writing two other books and selling more copies of my Grow Your Intuition book than ever. – Re-ignited my passion for tech and decided to start my own tech company. Now I'm looking for a tech co-founder and finalizing my idea so I can apply for TechStars next year. Those are just a few highlights of my 2010. Your turn. What's your one word for 2010? As for 2011, I've already selected my word. I'm going to keep it to myself for now. I want to savor 2010 for the moment before I focus on what's next.

On Monday morning I saw a haze over Boulder and discovered there was a fire in the mountains above the city–where one of my dearest friends lives. Unfortunately, she was in the kitchen cooking (she has a Crepe Cake company) so she hadn’t heard. It was incredibly chaotic and those who were evacuated were having trouble getting accurate information quickly. In an effort to assist her (and her dogs–one of which was stranded in the evacuation) I started listening to the police scanners and following folks with great information on Twitter. She lives in the most western part of Pine Brook Hills neighborhood where fire fighters have created a fire line to protect the fire from spreading even further. Luckily, she and her dogs were able to get out safely on Monday afternoon.

I attended the Town Hall Meeting September 8, 2010 to support my friend. It was an audience of mostly displaced and generally on the older side. My friend and I who are in our late 30′s/early 40′s were among the youngest ones there. Many of whom didn’t have access to or know how to use Twitter to gain information–which has been a great resource throughout the tragedy. They were really calm and matter of fact despite the fact that many of them had homes in the burn area. The man sitting next to us lives up Sugarloaf, was in his 80′s and has a wife battling cancer. The woman across from us lives on Sunshine Canyon and heard that her house as well as one other neighbor were the only ones standing in her neighborhood. But as she noted, that could change. My heart goes out to them.

It was a really informative meeting and I was really impressed with all the experts they assembled to share information. One of the scariest things I learned was that in some spots the fire is burning at 2000 degrees. No–I didn’t accidentally add an extra zero. That’s two thousand degrees. Yikes. Tomorrow Federal Type 1 crisis support will take over. Just so you know–that’s the same level of support they had for Hurricane Katrina. It’s very serious.

I tried to tweet the most important information. I decided to put together this post so that all the tweets were in one place and to make it easy for my friend to pass along to easily share information to all the people who are contacting her to get more information about her welfare. Since there has been misleading information out there I also decided to put it into a blog post for others who aren’t on Twitter or who weren’t able to watch in real time.  Tweets are in chronological order. I haven’t altered any of them so there may be spelling errors. Note: The landscape photos were taken from my home in Gunbarrel and are in order of the day they were taken.

Town Hall Meeting Tweets

*Press conference about to begin. Coors event center packed. #boulderfire

*No casualties, falities or injuries to public service officer knowledge #boulderfire

*Made very good progress on fire today. By 10am Thursday lifting #evac order for carriage hills, boulder heights & pine brook #boulderfire

*Road blocks in place only residents will be allowed back. Have to be ready to #evac again if necessary. #boulderfire

*Fed, state and forest service cooperation has been phenomenal.#boulderfire

*Damage assessment takes time & accuracy.140 structures destroyed & 24 damaged. #boulderfire

*Can get email updates at fourmilecanyonfire.com.#boulderfire

*Handling the donation of cash and goods are in process. Call 211. #boulderfire

*It’s a huge effort & it’s not over. We want to return your life to normal as soon as possible. Please be patient. Pbl srvcs mgr #boulderfire

*Want to know what you need. Victim Assistance Center 3482 N. Broadway #evac county comissioner

*Cash assistance is needed. Unitedwayfoothills.org. #boulderfire

*Using Twitter for up-to-date information. Twitter.com/bouldercounty Boulder County Commissioner #boulderfire

*Warehouses are bursting thanks to strong community response.#boulderfire

*Incident Commander:  6300 acres of fire (20 miles). 2 miles of perimeter are safe.#boulderfire

*500 people in field or command center. Costs are 2.1 million and rising. #boulderfire

*Type 1 incident commander incoming. More technical experience and horse power. #boulderfire

*Our team would like to take credit for rain today. Type 1 Incoming incident commander. #boulderfire

*Let us get it safe for you to go back in. Type 1 Incident Commander #boulderfire

*Mile high red cross: shelter at ymca. Pets can come too. Food available. Safe and well site coloradoredcross.com. #boulderfire

*Red Cross also offers medical services.#boulderfire

*BVSD fire assistance center 6500 E. Arapahoe for BVSD families affected. Lunch available for students & family daily.#boulderfire

*Jamestown open tomorrow and buses running except for #evac areas. Working on school for Gold Hill. #boulderfire

*Your reactions are normal for an abnormal situation. Donna Foster Boulder county victim advocate #boulderfire

*Boulder Sheriff: try to open and shrink areas of #evac as possible. Frees resources for other areas as well.#boulderfire

*Road blocks will stay in place except for residents allowed in certain areas. #boulderfire

*Incredible amounts of air support. Can’t fly on windy days. Flew as soon as we could. No cost restrictions. Boulder Sheriff #boulderfire

*Dropped 100,000 gallons of retardant by today. Boulder sheriff #boulderfire

*Almost 8000 success reverse 911 calls first day. Deputy went to every single house. Boulder sheriff #boulderfire

*County will work thru rebuilding process. In past philosophey has been that you can rebuild same size same location without hassle.

*Single best way to help is to give money to United Way Foothills. Give now note “Fourmile Canyon Fire” donation. #boulderfire

*Incident Commander: Slurry only lasts 8 hrs in wet conditions and must have someone to till it. #boulderfire #fire

*Official reports only on inciweb.org and boulderoem.com. 6pm is last update for the day. Incident Commander #boulderfire

@AllyBSpeakin That was the plan for Pine Brook Hills but check tomorrow to see if still ok due to wind. #boulderfire in reply to AllyBSpeaking

Yep. It’s Tuesday in the real world. But on this blog–it’s On My Mind Monday.  Here are your links for the week. Enjoy.

bg Blog: My Week Alone on the Internet
Why: I saw the author, Grant Blakeman speak recently at TedxBoulder about minimalism. (That’s him in the photo to the left.) He continues the good work here with a post on being distracted with what he calls CRS aka Constant-Refresh-Syndrome. This post details his experiment to circumvent this and what he found was that there are distractions everywhere. Insightful read.

The Daily Beast: Is There a Gender Divide in Startups?
Why: After a flurry of articles about where all the women are in tech startups the author herself a tech startup veteran gets to the point about what we should be focusing on. “I could keep writing about the lack of women in tech, but starting a new company sounds like a lot more fun.”

Seth’s Blog: The Fear Tax
Why: Ever the provocateur, Seth Godin does it again with this post. Simply? Fear is one of the biggest things that holds us back from success in business and in life.