I’ve long been interested in the seed accelerator model, as started by Y Combinator.  I wrote my master’s thesis on it, and wrote a follow-up post this spring.  Recently, two things have happened that I wanted to write about.  First, I restructured the spreadsheet where I maintained a list of all companies to come out of seed accelerators.  And second, NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, a UK investment and research body) recently undertook a significant piece of research into seed accelerators.

Update to Seed Accelerator company list spreadsheet

As a part of my original paper on seed accelerators, I compiled a list of all the companies that have come out of seed accelerators like Y Combinator, TechStars, Seedcamp, et cetera.  Each accelerator had its own tab, with the details of all their companies.  I kept edit rights, mainly so that I could be sure of the details for my paper and follow-up work.

As seed accelerators have exploded in number world-wide, it’s become nearly impossible to keep this working.  There were too many tabs for different accelerators to be found properly, and it really is best if the people that run the different programs can edit the details for their companies.

So there are now individual documents for each seed accelerator program, and the original document now has links to each individual program sheet.  If you run a seed accelerator, please e-mail me and I’ll be sure that 1) I have a separate spreadsheet for your accelerator and 2) you get full edit rights for your program’s spreadsheet.  (jed.christiansen@gmail.com)

Please check the new seed accelerator company directory here.

NESTA research

Kirsten Bound and Paul Miller recently undertook a significant piece of work to define, describe, and analyze seed accelerators on a global basis.  The result of which can be found on the NESTA page: “The Startup Factories“.  [Direct link to their PDF paper.]  I spoke to Kirsten a couple of times prior to and during their research, and they developed a real sense of the opportunities and challenges of startup accelerators.

While I didn’t have time to make NESETA’s half-day conference on seed accelerators last week, a friend of mine (Mark Littlewood of the BLN) did and wrote about it here: “Do we need startup factories?“.  The key element can be found at the bottom of his post, where Mark echo’s something I’ve been saying since my very first paper.  Only the best, top-tier seed accelerators will truly be of value to entrepreneurs. And the followers, the “me-too” seed accelerators that are starting to pop up everywhere, will be of little to negative value.  While in the long run it will be easy to tell between the two, in the short term I am afraid that startup founders may get fleeced.  Startup accelerators need to clearly understand their unique advantages that can allow them to recruit some of the best startups away from the Y Combinators and TechStars of the world.  If they can’t offer that level of value, it might not be worth it for them to exist.

The NESTA report is quite well written and clear.  Some of the data is a little dodgy; in particular I’m not a fan of the Tech cocktail rankings at all, since they have yet to mention what data they’re using to create the rankings.  (I personally believe that it overly weights the accelerators that more freely share data.)  But overall, it’s a great resource.

If you do have comments, please share them with the writers.  The discussion paper is currently in draft form, but they hope to finalize it soon.

I went to the Olympics for the first time in 2008, and had the most amazing experience.  If you’re someone that enjoys sport (any sport) it is an experience of a lifetime.

The ticketing process opens Tuesday, March 15th: 500 days before the Opening Ceremonies.  This post is a guide to (most) everything you want or need to know about getting tickets to the London 2012 Olympics.

The basics

Application window, not sales

If you think you need to get your request in first thing on March 15th, don’t.  There is a six-week application window during which you can submit your ticket application.  All requests received during this window are treated equally.  When the window closes, the London 2012 committee will evaluate how many applications were made for each session and price-point of ticket.  There is then a lottery/matching process to allocate the actual tickets, and you find out what you get at the end of that.

What starts in March is the application for tickets, not the sales themselves.

Secondary market

Yes, there will be a secondary market for tickets.  According to the London 2012 ticketing website, once you apply for tickets you’re committed to purchasing the tickets you are allocated.  But there will be an official ticket resale programme run by London 2012.  Additionally, there are always unofficial channels for reselling tickets.

What you need to plan

You must visit the London 2012 ticketing website to view the full competition schedule for the 2012 Olympics.  There’s a complete PDF, and an individual PDF for each sport.  It lists the dates, times, locations, and ticket prices for each session in the Olympics.  It details which exact events are included in each session, so you can pick out exactly what you want to see.  (Though for knock-out competitions like football, beach volleyball, etc., you won’t know who will be competing until the Games themselves.)

Key advice

Events subject to supply and demand.  (Some are not obvious.)

Some sports are fairly easy to get tickets for; they’re held in large venues and not as popular a sport.  Some are very hard: I specifically remember swimming being nearly impossible to get tickets for in Beijing.  The venue for swimming isn’t very big, and nearly half of the available space was taken up by world-wide press!  The demand for tickets roughly correlates to the TV popularity of a given sport; swimming, gymnastics, athletics are quite popular.  Weightlifting, shooting, and modern pentathlon less so.

Also, you can certainly try to apply for Opening Ceremonies tickets, but there’s so few left over after sponsors and athletic associations and governments get their tickets, there will hardly be any available.  Just so you have appropriate expectations…

Remember this when applying; you’re unlikely to get all of the tickets you want, and even less likely when they’re very popular events.

Lesser-known sports can be incredibly cool

This surprised me a bit based on my Beijing experience, but’s absolutely true.  The B finals in weightlifting (where they aren’t even eligible for medals) were just as riveting as any other sport I saw.  I also saw Greco-Roman wrestling for the very first time and it was awesome!  The organizers in Beijing had flyers at the entrance of each venue with information and rules about each sport, so if you weren’t familiar you could quickly get up to speed.

Fundamentally, the athletes at the Olympics are the very best in their particular sport. They have usually trained for years and years to get to that point, and are at their peak physical condition.  Any sport where the very best athletes are competing with so much on the line is awe-inspiring.

Cheap tickets can still be great seats

This is something else I’m really glad I learned in Beijing.  There really are no bad seats at a venue. The organizers go out of their way to install large screens so you can see the closeups of what you want, and scoreboards are everywhere.  Certainly the more you’re willing to spend, the better the seat you’ll get.  But even if you get tickets in what seems like the nosebleed section of the Olympic Stadium, you’ll still have a great experience.  (That’s where LondonAnnie and I had tickets in the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, and we had a fantastic time.)  Cheap seats at the Olympics are still good tickets.

Where you buy your tickets depends on where you live.

Buying tickets depends on where you reside.  The London 2012 ticket site is for residents of the UK and (most) European countries.  If you’re a resident of the USA, Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Austria or Bulgaria, CoSport.com is where you need to register to apply for tickets.  If you have any questions, check the London 2012 site here regarding eligibility.

Think about locations and travel time

While most venues are in/around the Olympic Park (Stratford), the Docklands (East London) or Central London, not all of them are.  Rowing is an hour journey from central London, sailing is on England’s south coast, and most football (soccer) matches are spread all over the country.  Be sure to understand where each sport is located, particularly if you’re interested in seeing multiple sports in one day.  (Which you should!)

Also, this is a great opportunity for people elsewhere in the country to experience the Olympics without traveling to London.

Free public transportation

If you hold an Olympic ticket for any event on a particular day of competition, public transportation will be free.  So don’t worry about costs and how you’ll get from venue to venue; it’ll be sorted for you and be free.

Recommended Strategies

Request as many tickets as you can afford

Tickets can quickly get expensive, so you understandably can’t apply for all of the tickets you want.  (And you’re obligated to buy all the tickets you’re allocated, even though you could resell them later.)  But you’re also not likely to get all of the tickets you apply for because of supply and demand.  Evaluate how much you’re willing to spend, and apply for as many tickets as you can.

“Go deep” on one sport

I like/recommend the strategy of choosing one sport, and then bidding for better tickets and a deeper experience that sport.  It’s great to get into one sport and really enjoy the full experience, from qualifying rounds to medal rounds.  (Though for some sports, you’ll definitely still have to pick and choose!)  But you can then combine this with cheaper tickets in other sports, so your money gets you to as many events as possible.

Be sure to include at least a few sports “off the beaten path”

Some of the lesser known sports can be fantastic experiences.  The athletes are truly in it for the love of the sport; they’re never going to be famous even if they win gold.  The drama of these athletes competing at the pinnacle of their sport is really one of the best things about going to the Olympics, and I’d highly recommend seeing some of the sports that are “off the beaten path.”

Summary

When you apply for Olympics tickets, it pays to be prepared.  Think about how much you’re willing to spend, look into all of the sports, and have a strategy when applying.  Then submit your application and wait for the results.

No matter what tickets you end up getting, you will absolutely enjoy the experience.  The Olympic games are like nothing else.

History of my 2008 Olympics experience

These are links to the photos and blog posts of my 2008 Beijing Olympics experience.  It will hopefully give you an idea of what to expect.

2008 Beijing Olympics photos  (2628 photos) – by LondonAnnie

• Day 1 – (20) – Airport, general Beijing shots
• Day 2 – (128) – Rowing
• Day 3 – (68) – Rowing
• Day 4 – (165) – Tiananmen Square, Rowing
• Day 5 – (93) – Great Wall of China
• Day 6 – (199) – Forbidden City, rowing
• Day 7 – (285) – Greco-Roman wrestling
• Day 8 – (420) – Women’s Gymnastics Individual All-around, Women’s beach volleyball
• Day 9 – (520) – Rowing finals
• Day 10 – (210) – Rowing finals
• Day 11 – (400) – Women’s Triathlon, Men’s Weightlifting, Athletics (hurdles, men’s long jump, and world-record-breaking women’s pole vault)
• Day 12 – (120) – Men’s Triathlon

2008 Beijing blog posts

• Off to the 2008 Beijing Olympics!
• She’s dancing!
• How a small mis-calculation saved us lots of money in China!
• Groundhog day on the Great Wall of China
• Day 5 of competitions
• Wrestling Day
• Friday wrap-up
• Saturday rowing finals – Fun, exciting and messy
• Our Olympic travels are over

Photo at the top is from LondonAnnie here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonannie/2785078140/in/set-72157606873198904/

To be clear, my viewpoint is looking at what it takes to make a seed accelerator successful.  Think of the VC business model: not every VC fund is successful.  (In fact, the median net return to VC fund investors has not been positive since 1998.)  To be a continued successful seed accelerator program, you need to have a financial model that works, provide value to the companies that you invest in, and invest in the best possible companies.  That means the best possible companies need to prefer your program to any other.  There are tiers involved, and I’m interested in what makes top-tier results possible.

What has changed:

Y Combinator provides the most money to their funded companies

The deal with The Start Fund was huge news.  There is now an investor that is willing to put $150k into every Y Combinator startup, sight un-seen.  Many commenters have suggested that this will open up YC to older applicants, who will have enough income security to risk quitting a more senior job to do the program.  Though most YC, TechStars and Seedcamp companies raise external funding anyway, having this publicly committed before you even start makes it a nice security blanket.

Perhaps more importantly on a tactical level is that it gives YC startups more breathing room in the fundraising race.  Tommy at CarWoo wrote a great post about this.  As he wrote:

[Fundraising] was a huge issue on the minds of all the YC companies and I know for a fact that it was a distraction. I know it was for us.

Finally, this is a deal for Y Combinator startups alone, and puts them at a significant advantage compared to other seed accelerators in attracting the best companies to the program.  (The highest-ranked factor startups think about when it comes to seed accelerators, per my original post.)  The existance of The Start Fund signals that YC acceptance is a high bar, and it’s worth having an option on every company that comes out of it.

Y Combinator has the largest alumni network

According to my spreadsheet tracker, Y Combinator has funded just about 250 startups.  Combined with an ethos of helping each other out, this is a huge advantage to potential applicants.  I’ve spoken to a number of YC startups, and all of them mention this as a significant benefit.  (This is the second-highest-ranked factor startups think about.)

The secondary effect of all this is that Y Combinator has seen 4x-20x the number of startups that other accelerators have seen.  That means 4x-20x the applications, 4x-20x the founder problems, 4x-20x the customer acquisition problems, etc.  They have more experience with pretty much everything.  That extra experience is valuable for entrepreneurs.

TechStars has developed into a world-wide network

TechStars has recently announced a world-wide network of 17 seed accelerators, the TechStars Network.  What’s interesting with this is that it spreads the business model of seed accelerators more widely, and starts to standardize on best practices.  When I spoke with David Cohen nearly two years ago, helping other entrepreneurs and accelerators get started was clearly something he felt strongly about.  (Which is different to the go-it-alone approach of YC.)  While I believe my original thesis is correct, making each and every one of the accelerators that are popping up better is a great thing for entrepreneurs and startups.

What hasn’t changed:

Y Combinator is still the only seed accelerator in the Silicon Valley area.

There are new seed accelerators opening in what feels like every city, state, and university campus… except Silicon Valley.  (More about this below.)  I find this really strange, to be honest.  The Bay Area is pretty much the richest source of technology startup resources, and most of the programs dedicated to the most fledgling companies don’t exist here?  I can think of two reasons for it.

One, the people interested in starting seed accelerators want to do them in their own hometowns, no matter how suitable those cities are for these programs.  This would explain why so many are started in other cities, but wouldn’t necessarily explain why no additional accelerators have been founded in Silicon Valley.

Two, Y Combinator is seen as an 800-pound gorilla in the seed accelerator world, and no one wants to get in a pissing match with them.  This seems plausible, but I think there are so many resources in SV that any new program wouldn’t intersect with YC.  Perhaps this is more reflective of an ego issue; that no one wants to start a separate program and then be compared to YC?

Y Combinator, particularly through Hacker News, is more directly engaged with startup culture

I’ve grown to think that Hacker News is a key differentiator between the different accelerators.  It provides a strong conduit between the YC partners, the YC alumni, YC applicants, and general entrepreneurial people.  These communities always have existed before (ie, Slashdot), but Hacker News has centralized the audience around internet startups, and more importantly around the Y Combinator experience, philosophy, and brand.

Hacker News helps feed the virtuous circle that makes Y Combinator a top-tier seed accelerator.

Most seed accelerators are just local copies of Y Combinator

I’m disappointed when I see a program that’s simply a clone of Y Combinator in a different city.  Differentiate yourself! Though there are some notable exceptions:

TechStars has definitely taken a different tack with their program, developing into a network of international programs.  Their core programs in Boulder, Boston and Seattle together have a higher level of experience and engagement, with more startups funded and close coordination between the different locations.  TechStars has a mentorship process where each of their startups is matched with 1-2 mentors, and the mentors don’t work with any other TechStars company in that batch.  (They also provide centralized office space for the startups.)  All in all, it’s one of the most developed programs outside YC.

Fundamentally, results are what matter.  TechStars actually publishes their results online, and they’re solid.

Seedcamp has a radically different approach, but probably befitting their non-US location.  (Which means they can easily attract non-US startups that wouldn’t easily be able to live/work in the US.)  They host numerous mini-Seedcamp events across Europe, and then cap it off with their final decision around the handful of startups they put more resources into.  So while they’ve seen a lot of European startups, they’ve only invested in a fairly limited number, about 40.

The Brandery looked very interested when it got started.  They’re located in Cincinnati, Ohio, which seems like it’s off the beaten track for startups… until you remember that it’s the world headquarters for Proctor & Gamble, a company that is incredibly focused on consumer brands.  There’s a huge resource of talent for companies that need strong consumer brands.

I was hoping that this would open The Brandery up to startups that weren’t just consumer internet startups, but it looks like the list of their 2010 companies were just that.  I’ve now become more dubious; at the early stage of these startups they need a product more than they need a brand, so the accelerator won’t be able to offer as much value.  Perhaps there’s a place for a slightly later-stage startup: one that has a solid product but needs a brand finishing school to take them to the next level?

Credit

Andrew Parker (formerly of Union Square Ventures, now at Spark Capital) made an interesting comment on my original post:

If you’re going to copy YCombinator, then you should really give credit where credit is due: thank YCombinator. I went to the demo days for LaunchBox, TechStars, SeedCamp, fbFund REV and YCombinator in the past year. The only YC clone that even acknowledged that they were a YC clone and, furthermore, thanked YCombinator for their pioneering efforts was Dave McClure at fbFund REV. All the other programs never even mentioned YCombinator at the demo day.

Now I’m not convinced that every other accelerator should genuflect upon Y Combinator at each of their Demo Days, but what Andrew pointed out was interesting.

Y Combinator appears to be the least structured of all accelerators

TechStars was the second major seed accelerator out of the gate after Y Combinator, and they’ve started the trend of what appears to be much more structure in the TechStars program, and the programs TechStars has influenced.  In addition to periodic meetings for everyone, they have all the startups work in the same physical office, and have a structured mentorship system.  (As I understand it, each startup in a batch is matched with a small number of mentors, and those mentors work only with that specific startup.)  This is quite a bit different from the YC model, where the major structure is a weekly dinner and then open office hours with the YC staff which you can take or leave.

What this means for seed accelerators:

You need to be unique, where unique is not just a seed accelerator in a different city

I am still absolutely convinced that if you’re a Y Combinator clone, just located in a different city, you will never be a top-tier program.  Why?  Because if you’re just doing exactly what YC does, but you provide less money and less expertise, you’ll never have the top startups wanting to work with you.

What I’m waiting to see is a program that does something else entirely.  For example, what about an accelerator that works with companies building actual, physical products?  Companies like Wakemate (from YC) have struggled as they work out production issues, find and develop relationships with factories, etc.  If there was an accelerator that had a group of mentors that could help guide startups through this journey, with contacts a low- and higher-rate production facilities, and in a financial structure that made sense, I think it could be tremendously successful.  (Again, defining success as being the top-choice of any startup working in that field.)

This is simply one example; you could do a dramatically different approach any number of ways.  (After reading Roger Ehrenberg’s blog, couldn’t NYC start one around a theme of big data, data visualization and finance?)  But so far, everyone just wants to have an accelerator for internet software startups, generally consumer focused, with the same model as YC.  There’s more potential out there, people!

There’s room for another seed accelerator in Silicon Valley

Who’s going to start it?

(Dave McClure seems to have made a stab at this with the 500 Startups Accelerator; the main difference from others being that there’s no open application, startups have to be referred in.)

You need to be a program that everyone you’re focused on badly wants to attend

As one famous Google executive says, “Repetition doesn’t spoil the prayer,” and thus I want to keep repeating myself here.  To be a truly successful seed accelerator, you need to be highly desired by the best companies you want to help.  There needs to be a strong match between what you offer, and what the startup wants and needs to be successful.  There will always be companies looking for investors, and if your pool isn’t that big some of them will certainly look good, if only by comparison.  But your accelerator needs to be the preferred program for the best startups.  Those best startups have the best chance of being successful and generating the results and returns that enable the program to continue sustainably.

Summary

I still feel like we’re in the very early days of seeing the successes and failures of seed accelerators.  The startup world, and specifically the funding world, appears to have a number of discontinuities.  (Particularly once you start getting away from consumer internet startups.)  Seed accelerators have a great opportunity to start filling in the existing gaps, and helping companies go from idea to polished execution much more cleanly.

Going back to a link I shared near the top, Bryce Roberts has some great comments about VC funds that I believe also apply to seed accelerators:

a handful of them have been delivering outsized returns for decades now. They don’t call Sequoia, Accel, Benchmark, KP, Matrix, Greylock “top tier” for nothing. They’ve figured out a few things related to building enduring companies and consistently delivering returns for their investors.

If you’re going to start a new fund, be different. Proprietary dealflow, investment stage, operating experience or deep network of industry contacts are meaningless buzzwords that aren’t going to set you apart from the pack. As SuperLP says “to do something outstanding takes audacity.  And indeed, private equity should be all about audacity”. Being the 10th seed fund, or 5th “opportunity” fund isn’t going to set you apart from the pack. Be different.

To create a top-tier seed accelerator, you need to be a top-tier choice for startups the world over in your niche.  Just like a VC firm, seed accelerators need to have the best possible startups (deal flow), in order to fund the best teams and ideas.  If your seed accelerator can achieve this, you will have a sustainable program.

Appendix – Data

If you haven’t seen it already, I’ve maintained a list of companies that have been funded through these seed accelerators.  Click here for the Google Docs link, or check out the embedded doc below:

That’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make today.

How much time and effort should be spent on intake, on inbound messages, on absorbing data…

and how much time and effort should be invested in output, in creating something new.

There used to be a significant limit on available intake. Once you read all the books in the college library on your topic, it was time to start writing.

Now that the availability of opinions, expertise and email is infinite, I think the last part of that sentence is the most important:

Time to start writing.

Or whatever it is you’re not doing, merely planning on doing.

I grew up loving reading, loving learning and this has transformed me into someone that constantly juggles half a dozen books, a couple magazines, a never-ending Twitter feed and a truly never-ending Google Reader.  But as much as I enjoy it, when I step back I realize that I really love doing something about what I’ve learned.

The problem is saying “enough is enough”, stepping back, and taking action.

It feels like I’ll never get the balance right, but I try to get better every day.

Setting the scene

There’s probably one in many good-sized organizations… “that guy.” Well, Chris has always been “that guy.” He has always been the odd man out, marching to the beat of a different drummer. He cares about different things, and does things differently to everyone else. It’s not always a bad thing, but it means that Chris is not representative of most Navy officers I’ve ever known.

Also, submarines are very strange places to work. Pack 130 men into a very small space for six months. Then mess with their body clocks by having them work on an 18-hour day (compared to a rational 24-hour day), with six hours on-watch, six hours training/maintenance, and (hopefully) six hours sleep… constantly changing so you never feel fully awake or (sometimes) even fully tired. The norms of human behavior just change when you’re out at sea.

When you’re confined for so long you get bored easily, and the way to be entertained is simply to fuck with people. You’ll do anything to get a reaction out of someone. Once you get that reaction, you know that whenever you get bored you can do the same thing and get the same reaction. Two of the most common ways we would use to get reactions from each other would be by playing off of fears of homophobia and general bad taste. In other words there was a lot of “grab-ass” and disgusting stories (and pornography); all of it to try and get a reaction from other guys on the boat. (Most everyone was immune to the usual “your mom” insults.) As long as you didn’t react you were fine; guys would stop trying and find other things to eliminate boredom.

I explain all of this because Chris just didn’t quite seem to fit in that kind of environment, and also didn’t recognize that people were fucking with him only because he would react. (And it appears that the same problems of not fitting in occured in Iraq, where run-ins with his superiors in Baghdad ended up getting him transferred to another command.)

Melodrama

Most importantly, only think of reading this book if you’re comfortable with melodrama. Below is quite a long quote, but I think it describes exactly what I mean:

Around the base of the statue [in France], the names of various writers, philosophers, and mathematicians from centuries past are inscribed. The names are those of giants like Descartes, Renoir, Sartre, Curie, Fourier, Newton, Shakespeare … every one a genius—someone who had changed the world! As I read the small chiseled names, it occurred to me that the names had been added after the statue was built; it was a work in progress! Encircling the monument, I realized with a sense of amazement that fully half of the space was left blank for more names to be added!

A sense of awe gripped me as the weight of that empty space set in, for in that blank space lay faith in the capacity of mankind—the most powerfully humanistic statement I had ever seen. A tear came to my eye as I stared at the beautiful emptiness of those bronze panels, wondering whose name would come next and what extraordinary thing that person would have accomplished. Then, just as quickly as this audacious faith in mankind had gripped me, the emptiness of another monument seized hold and dragged me down. My spine tensed, the hair on my neck stood on end, and I imagined myself standing once more at attention in the central rotunda of the Naval Academy. On the large memorial to our fallen alumni, several new names had appeared since my graduation, yet the vastness of the empty space seemed unchanged. On that massive wall with movable plastic lettering, the emptiness had become the most salient feature. I realized with a sense of horror that my life had been a pursuit of that emptiness. Until that point, I had struggled to control the things that would prevent the names of my classmates from appearing in that unbearable space. My faith in those white plastic names had dignified my pursuit! But at that instant, I realized that my quest had been hollow because of what lay within the emptiness of that godforsaken wall.

Instead of faith in the capacity of mankind, that emptiness chanted in an austere, commanding tone the insidiously pessimistic dogma War will never end … War will never end! WAR WILL NEVER END!!! “SHUT UP!!!” I shouted in anger at the cold, blackened wall. My voice echoed in the hall as though I were standing alone within a canyon. Suddenly tears were streaming down my face, my fists were clenched, and I howled, “I will not follow you anymore! You can’t have my life!” I sobbed, exasperated and purged. The albatross that hung from my neck broke loose and fell into the sea. I knew what sort of monument I wanted my name to be inscribed upon, and that knowledge carried me forward with a newfound sense of hope.

If you managed to survive reading that quote, you see exactly what I mean. If you couldn’t survive reading that quote, I would avoid the book.

Cheating in the Navy & on the Hartford

The biggest controversy to come out of Chris’ book was his accusations of wide-spread cheating on the Hartford. Overall, this is absolute horseshit. I don’t ever remembering receiving answer keys to any of my nuclear exams before the exam. And I’m pretty sure I passed mine on the first try.

What I think happened is that other guys on the boat recognized that Chris was struggling with the exam. (The book mentions it took him five times to pass it!) The choices for the Navy then are to either kick Chris off the boat and off of submarine duty, or to help him pass the exam so he can at least be evaluated in the context of actually doing the job. Some guys just aren’t good test-takers, but are solid nuclear plant operators. It appears that while Chris could barely pass a test and couldn’t lead a watch team, he could operate a reactor plant safely. In my mind, that’s much better than washing someone out of submarines, wasting a lot of the Navy’s time and money, when it wasn’t really necessary.

Chris extrapolated this to believe that everyone on the boat was receiving exam keys and cheating. That’s certainly not something I ever witnessed. What he experienced was someone who was a bit of a rock getting help. And after doing so, he proved that he could actually do the job.

Were the exams too tough? Possibly. But if that’s the case, I don’t blame the boat, I blame the Navy’s nuclear community and Naval Reactors for putting into place a system that sets unreasonable standards. Was it too each to cheat if you wanted? Yes, but unless the Navy develops Navy-wide exams and hold exams that are proctored not by the boat but by the squadron (the commander of ~5-6 submarines) the current system is the best there is.

Other Hartford stories

Did pressurized septic tanks spray in the galley? Yep, it happened. (Though it’s not as bad as it seems.)

Did Chris have some legendary run-ins with the crew? Oh, yeah. Perhaps the most legendary was the one he describes in Chapter 1, where one of the enlisted guys in the engine room wagged his genitalia near his face when Chris was leaning down to read some electrical meters. It was early in Chris’ tour on the boat and as he writes in the book, “I completely lost control.” That set the tone for a lot of his interactions with the crew for as long as I was on board.

At one point in the book he described how he had to call the senior enlisted supervisor into the engineering control room to enforce discipline. If you know how to lead a watch team, that never needs to happen. (You also learn what’s serious, and what is people trying to fuck with you, and how to ignore the latter.) You earn the respect of your team, and it sounds like Chris had difficulty with that.

Iraq

The problem I have with Chris’ description of his time in Iraq is that I’ve already read “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” and “Fiasco”. (Both of which I highly recommend, by the way.) He does capture the daily inanity of working as a junior officer on a major command staff, but a lot of this part of the book was a bit boring because it was just from his single-person perspective. It’s more personal, but very limited.

If you read “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” or “Fiasco” there are a lot of stories and perspectives from people across the government and military, and they are woven together into a compelling story that’s really powerful. Chris’ story is interesting, but doesn’t really add anything to the body of work about how screwed up the Iraq war had gotten.

Summary

Part of me really liked this book because it brought back a lot of memories of my time on the Hartford. Thinking back, this was a very formative period in my life, and it’s pleasant to revisit (some) of those memories.

But mainly I was really frustrated reading this book, because it reflects the perspective of an oddball outsider. In the grand scheme of history it might be useful for family history to be written by the black sheep of the family, but it doesn’t do much for accuracy of that family history. Those of us who were there know how to filter the author’s offbeat perspective and understand what’s behind it, but for any other reader it’s just not what I would call an full version of the truth.

(Note that enough though I got the Nexus One, the experience will be very similar for anyone switching to a modern Android phone, such as a Droid or any of the cool new HTC phones that have come out recently.)

The wicked awesome

Power widget / battery management - When I first saw the power widget on my phone’s home screen, I honestly didn’t know what it did. There were five icons, which seemed to toggle on/off. But this widget is fantastic, and allows you to quickly turn battery hogs (such as GPS, WiFi, push notifications, etc) on and off. Compared to digging in a variety of various iPhone menus in the “Settings” app, I can quickly change how much power my phone is using.

And it might be my usage patterns, but I get a LOT more use out of my Nexus One battery than I got out of my iPhone. It was getting to the point where my iPhone would barely last until after lunch, where my Nexus One can easily last all day and my commute home. Not only that, but when my Nexus One battery degrades, I can replace it myself!

Google Maps - This app is just amazing. It’s even got StreetView, and I personally think that the StreetView interface on the phone is superior to the interface on the desktop. I find it hard to describe exactly how fantastic this app is, and how useful it can be. Every time I go somewhere I haven’t been before I use this app.

Flexibility - I love the flexibility of the Android platform. Just the concept of adding widgets to your homescreens is awesome. I’ve been traveling quite a bit recently, and I have little 1×1 widgets on my homescreens that constantly update with the latest exchange rates. There are built in widgets to control music, to search (big surprise there), see news headlines, twitter, etc. Fundamentally there is so much more flexibility in what you can do with an Android phone, and I love it.

Multiple apps - The biggest feature I love is that multiple apps can be running at the same time. This didn’t seem to matter that much when I first switched from the iPhone, but I’ve slowly come to realize how brilliant this is for users. I can click on a link in my Twitter client (I use Seesmic; it’s awesome), open it in a browser, get a notification that I’ve got a new e-mail and open the Gmail client, and then switch back and forth with little or no wait since all the apps are running at the same time. It just makes the experience of using the phone so much faster, particularly for “power” users.

The really good

Unlocked - The Nexus One doesn’t come locked to a carrier. While you may or may not have a contract with that carrier which could be expensive to break, the phone itself is unlocked. I really like that.

Form factor & display - The display is amazing, and really vivid. It’s got an 800 x 400 pixel display, which is over twice the iPhone (which has a 480 x 320 pixel display). It feels great in your hand, and it amazingly thin. While I don’t see the need for a trackball, it’s there and has occasionally been useful to select/edit within a paragraph of small text. It’s just a really solid phone.

Speed - The Nexus One is fast. I switched from an iPhone 3G, and the 3GS is probably a better comparison, but I love the speed of my new phone.

Google integration - I’ve been a Google user since it was still hosted on the Stanford servers. I’ve been a Gmail user since 2004, and have since switched to Google Calendar and Google Contacts. If you use *any* of these products, the Nexus One is amazing. The apps just simply work, and work the way you want them to. Any changes sync back immediately, and you can be much more productive. (Certainly much more productive than I was with my iPhone.)

The needs improvement

The Nexus One and Android isn’t exactly a “Jesus” phone… there are some things I wish it did better.

App Market - Searching and purchasing in the App Market is great. Browsing, however, isn’t. I personally feel that browsing for new apps is something best done on the desktop, and that’s not possible with the App Market as it stands. Hopefully it’ll be something that will change someday.

Sync music - So far I’ve been using DoubleTwist, and certainly recommend it. (And highly recommend getting the DoubleTwist app for your Android phone- it eliminates some annoying steps you would otherwise have to do manually when you plug your phone into your computer.) But it’s not perfect and not quite as slick as iTunes is for the iPhone. That said, I think there’s a lot more I can learn and get configured within DoubleTwist, so I don’t want to be too harsh.

Sound/Vibrate - When I first drafted this list, I wanted to point out that there’s no “silent” switch like there is on the iPhone. However, I’ve since learned about the “Ringer Toggle Widget” which is now on my homescreen. It lets you quickly toggle between normal ringer, silent ringer, and vibrate modes. And even though it’s on the home screen, with multiple apps it means you don’t have to quit out of an app to get to it. With all that said, I do like having a physical switch so I can reach into my pocket in a meeting to make sure the ringer is off!

Summary

I love my Nexus One, and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new smartphone.

But more broadly, I’m now a convert to the Android platform. As the iPhone becomes more of a walled garden, I’m really loving the openness and flexibility of the Android platform. Where there are certainly some user experience things I find a little annoying, overall I love the sense that I can make my phone do what I want it to do, and not what Apple thinks I should do with it. Now clearly I’m biased, not least because I work with a team of engineers who also do Android development and work with the community of Android developers. But the trend toward openness and flexibility is something I really look forward to experiencing in the coming years.

PS

For an example of a video I created/uploaded to YouTube directly from my Nexus One, see below. (It’s MGMT in concert in London this last week… on a side note their next album “Congratulations” should be awesome!)

(Not too bad considering how close I was to the speakers.)

It has been shown in an extensive world-wide study that a simple checklist used in surgery cuts infection rates, cuts death rates, and saves costs. It does all of these by substantial margins, everywhere they’ve been implemented. But so far only a minority of hospitals (Dr. Gawande mentioned 10 percent) have started using the safe surgery checklist, or any others, for that matter.

Yet today, the New York Times has an article titled “Results Unproven, Robotic Surgery Wins Converts.” Here are the most important quotes:

But robot-assisted prostate surgery costs more — about $1,500 to $2,000 more per patient. And it is not clear whether its outcomes are better, worse or the same.

[...]

Last year, 73,000 American men — 86 percent of the 85,000 who had prostate cancer surgery — had robot-assisted operations, according to the robot’s maker, Intuitive Surgical, the only official source of such data. Eight years ago there were fewer than 5,000, Intuitive says.

[...]

[O]nce a hospital invests in a robot — $1.39 million for the machine and $140,000 a year for the service contract, according to Intuitive — it has an incentive to use it. Doctors and patients become passionate advocates, assuming that newer means better.

[...]

And the robot is slow; it typically takes three and a half hours for a prostate operation, according to Intuitive, twice as long as traditional surgery.

So in this particular kind of surgery, a majority of surgeons quickly take up a new technology that has yet to show it can provide any sort of benefit! The same procedure is now slower and much more expensive. And the same doctors are resisting adopting a simple checklist (for little to no cost) that conclusively show improved results.

Not to make too much of a political situation here, but our health care system is clearly a mess. Doctors clearly don’t always know what’s truly important for their patients. I’m not saying surgeons shouldn’t use robots, but exhaust the easy, cheap, and conclusively better tools first! Use a damn checklist!

The result?

In one hospital:

• 10-day infection rate went from 11% to ZERO
• Prevented 8 deaths
• Saved $2million in costs

Across ICU’s in Michigan:

• In three months cut infections by 66%!
• Typical ICU cut infection rate to ZERO
• In 18 months, prevented 1500+ deaths
• In 18 months, saved $175,000,000

These are amazing results, and his book on checklists, “The Checklist Manifesto,” was recently published. Click below to order it from Amazon.

This book is inspiring, educational, engaging, riveting and fascinating. It’s extremely well-written, and is a fairly easy read. I’ve never written a blog post immediately after finishing a book, but I am now because not only is it GOOD, but this book is IMPORTANT.

Dr. Gawande led a huge study of a “safe surgery” checklist, a simple set of steps to be checked in each surgery. It was used and studied in eight hospitals: four in the developed world (US, UK, etc.) and four in the developing world (Tanzania, New Delhi, Jordan, Manila). Thousands of patients were studied for months before and after checklists were implemented. The results?

• Rate of complications fell by 36%
• Deaths fell by 47%
• Infections fell by nearly half
• Even in advanced hospitals in developed world, complications were decreased by one-third

I mean…. WOW! Cutting infection rates and death rates in surgery by half (with marginal differences between developed and developing countries) is simply incredible.

But here’s a choice quote from the book:

Take the safe surgery checklist. If someone discovered a new drug that could cut down surgical complications with anything remotely like the effectiveness of the checklist, we would have television ads with minor celebrities extolling its virtues. Detail men would offer free lunches to doctors to make it part of their practice. Government programs would research it. Competitors would jump in to make newer and better versions. If the checklist were a medical device, we would have surgeons clamoring for it, lining up at display booths at surgical conferences to give it a try, hounding their hospital administrators to get one for them – because, damn it, doesn’t providing good care matter to those pencil pushers?

Checklists are powerful, and not just for surgery. Gawande writes about data from investment managers and venture capitalists that shows that those that use checklists are much more successful than those that don’t. They’ve been used in aviation for 70+ years, ever since airplanes became so complicated as to be dangerous without checklists. The modern construction industry uses checklists to ensure their projects are safe and properly constructed.

I’m very familiar with checklists; operating a nuclear reactor in a US Navy submarine means you live with checklists in everything you do. But I accepted it without too much thought since we had no idea there was any other way of running such a complicated machine. It’s amazing to me that other complex professions don’t also use the same procedures.

Checklists are threatening to many people and professions. Using them implies that professionals don’t know what they’re doing, that they don’t have the ability to do their jobs. Even with the results described in surgery above, many surgeons still don’t use them. (Despite the fact that they continually prove to save patients’ lives, everywhere.) As Dr. Gawande describes above, if the same results were achieved through a pill or machine, doctors and hospitals would be racing to adopt them!

Dr. Gawande goes into real detail not only in what makes a good checklist and how to develop them, but also why they work. They work by simply making sure that key simple steps are accomplished, and by freeing your brain from concerning itself about the easy stuff (since the checklist will catch anything you miss). This frees the brain to think about the hard stuff, and able to deal with complications more directly. Good checklists also make communications easier, so that when things do go wrong, the experts involved can address them more directly.

Fundamentally, time after time, in study after study… checklists WORK.

Summary

This is a hugely important book, and I honestly can’t recommend it more highly, It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you deal with or manage complexity, you NEED to read it.

If you want to efficiently improve your performance or your teams’ performance quickly and substantially, a checklist is your way to do it.

Flook

Flook is the least-known of these three apps, but potentially the most interesting. Users take photos (which are automatically geo-tagged) and then add captions and information about the photo. What’s cool is that if you go somewhere new, you can quickly pull up the interesting places nearest to you. That might be a pub, a cool shop, or virtually anything else. And of course there’s a comments section around each card, too.

For me, the current downfall of Flook is that it’s iPhone-only, and I’ve recently moved to an Android phone. It’s also difficult to find and follow people you know, unless they’re in the same area and you see their cards normally.

Fundamentally, Flook is a hugely rich source of interesting information, with a *fantastic* user interface. I highly recommend that you download it for your iPhone and try it out. (Disclosure: I know the founders/investors of Flook, and think highly of them.)

PS- They’re currently running a competition to win a MacBook Air by just making cool Flook cards… check it out by clicking here.

Gowalla

Gowalla competes directly with Foursquare, and I have to definitely give the edge to Gowalla. It’s a beautifully made application, and what I love about it is the metaphor that Gowalla uses: a passport. Users are encouraged to get “stamps” in their “passport” for visiting new places. You earn and collect cool items from commissioning/founding new places, and can drop them off and pick up other cool items anywhere you visit. It’s definitely helped me think about new and interesting pubs, restaurants, etc. near me. (And of course see where your friends are checking in, too.)

While Gowalla has an iPhone app, their Android interface is through a web application. (http://m.gowalla.com) It has 80% of the functionality; the only major thing it’s missing is the ability to see and drop off your “items”.

[UPDATE]: I forgot this in my original post, but Gowalla lets you add locations anywhere in the world, and not just in particular cities like Foursquare. For example, I was at a conference at a huge convention center in southwest Ireland recently and added that to Gowalla, no problem. (Unlike Foursquare.) Foursquare may be rolling out to new cities all the time, but Gowalla can be used anywhere in the world right now.

Foursquare

Foursquare is bigger (in number of users) than Gowalla and has top-flight investors (Union Square Ventures), but I just don’t care for it. Its design is good, but not beautiful like Gowalla’s. But the biggest thing is the metaphor of points & mayorships that Foursquare uses. Each week a user’s points gets reset, and you have to keep checking into places to get and keep your “mayorship.”

To me, the metaphor of “mayorship” is a recipe for stagnation. It encourages users to go back to the same places over and over, and the mayorship will likely only rotate amongst a small number of regulars. For me, I quickly became the mayor of places where few other people checked in, and was out of the running for mayor-ships where I went regularly but where others checked in far more frequently. In both cases, my incentives were to stop using it.

Now, Foursquare does have a native application for both iPhone and Android, and it has excellent advisors. The founders previously started Dodgeball, a similar application which was bought by Google (where it stagnated) a couple years ago. It will need some better execution to get over its current problems. While Foursquare might be popular now with early adopters, I think it will have serious problems if/when it goes mainstream.

Summary

So I’m a Flook user when I have my iPhone handy, and I’m definitely a Gowalla user. Gowalla is great to track cool places I’ve been and where my friends go, and Flook is great to find interesting stuff that I might otherwise miss. Definitely give both a try.

I got my bachelor’s degree (Aerospace Engineering) from the University of Michigan, which is located in the lovely town of Ann Arbor, Michigan (about a 45 minute drive from Detroit). As one of the top research universities in the US, the greater Ann Arbor area is home to major R&D facilities and company headquarters from the pharmaceutical, automotive, and engineering industries. There are interesting, fun things to do all the time in Ann Arbor.

I got/am getting my MBA degree from Cambridge University, in the ancient town of Cambridge, UK (about a 45 minute train from London). As one of the top research universities in the world, Cambridge is home to major R&D facilities and company headquarters from the semiconductor, software, and general technology industries. There are interesting, amazing things to do all the time in Cambridge.

Theory on resources

I believe strongly in the notion that prosperity leads directly from two things: natural resources and population size. (It’s a big reason why the US economy has been so dominant: amazingly large & diverse land mass with a large enough population to exploit it.) As an example, there is an extraordinary correlation between the Olympic medal table and just five factors:

• GDP
• Population size
• political structure
• climate
• home nation bias

The same elements apply to cities and their business cultures. As most of the western world generally has the same political structure, and home nation bias is irrelevant in this argument, the only things that matter are GDP, Population size and climate. It’s here that Ann Arbor and Cambridge are strangely similar.

According to Wikipedia, Ann Arbor boasts a population of 114,000 with students making up 32% of that. Greater Cambridge boasts a population of 130,000 with students making up 17% of that. As I mentioned above, both are home to major tech employers. (Strangely, both have engineering centers that are both well away from the main University centers… in Cambridge: the West Cambridge site, and in Ann Arbor: North Campus.) Even the climates are fairly comparable, though Cambridge doesn’t get quite as warm, or quite as cold, as Ann Arbor.

But what I want to address are the differences. As I am now tied more strongly to Cambridge, I’d like to show how those differences can provide lessons to the Cambridge community.

Advantages of each

Cambridge’s advantages over Ann Arbor

A huge advantage that Cambridge has over Ann Arbor is its next largest neighbor. Ann Arbor is closest to Detroit, which is slowly coming to grips with the fact that it will never come close to being the legendary Motown again. Detroit (and the entire state) is suffering from severe economic hardship, and unfortunately it’s not going to end anytime soon.

Cambridge is lucky in that the closest city is London. London has weathered the recent economic hardships well, and is still a leading center for the financial and media industries throughout Europe. Being an easy 45 minute commute away truly puts the world at Cambridge’s doorstep. (Key airports also put most of Europe less than half a day of travel away.)

Another advantage Cambridge has over Ann Arbor is Cambridge University. Where the University of Michigan is one of the best US universities, Cambridge is world-class. Literally, Cambridge University been ranked as one of the top 3 universities in the world. The number of incredibly smart people around the city is vast.

Finally, Cambridge has a huge funding advantage. Because of Cambridge’s history in the last 50 years in the tech world, there are a lot of accomplished investors between the angels and VC’s in the city. The city is still seen as a strong source of leading-edge technology; for example, Xen Source (since acquired by Citrix) was one of the few international investments from Kleiner Perkins.

Ann Arbor’s advantages over Cambridge

Ann Arbor has its own advantages over Cambridge. For one, the standard of living is cheaper. (Partly because of the general malaise in Michigan, partly because it’s a student town, and partly because exchange rates favor the dollar.) This makes it generally easier to start a business since your cash lasts longer.

Ann Arbor has some great facilities. I highly encourage people in Cambridge to check out this site: Tech Brewery.

The Tech Brewery is an old brewery that’s been converted to offices for entrepreneurs & startups for just $50-$250 a month. It’s pretty close to both central Ann Arbor and the College of Engineering campus. Looking at the site, twelve companies are located there, including Hab.la/Olark, a Y Combinator company. That’s a space that will attract interesting, vibrant startups.

(On this note, there is a bit of a shining beacon in Cambridge. Red Gate Software, through its co-CEO Neil Davidson, has built something a bit similar at their headquarters in Cambridge. In addition to hosting the new Springboard program, they’re also home to a group of startups that work from the Red Gate offices and get to share in the free food there.)

But Ann Arbor also has the Workantile Exchange, located in the center of town. It’s essentially a cool (and again, attractive) co-working space attached to a coffee shop.

Additionally, Ann Arbor has the Center for Entrepreneurship. It has a pretty focused goal: it’s a “Michigan Engineering venture that empowers students, faculty and staff to pursue entrepreneurial achievements that improve people’s lives, drives the economy and helps innovators bridge the gap between inventors and venture capitalists.”

(Compare that to the Cambridge Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning. It’s goal is more educational: “to ‘Spread the Spirit of Enterprise’ by providing educational activities to inspire and build skills in the practice of entrepreneurship.” In other words, while Cambridge focuses on learning, Ann Arbor focuses on doing.)

Finally, there is simply a bit of a culture gap. I’ve simply been told too many times, “Of course; it takes an American to start Cambridge Tech Meetup / Cambridge OpenCoffee.” It’s honestly a little depressing that that was the case.

What can Cambridge take from this comparison?

Entrepreneurs will naturally cluster… help them

I would LOVE it if Cambridge had a space similar to Ann Arbor’s Tech Brewery. A cool, convenient, cheap place to work with fellow geeks. While there are hopeful signs between Red Gate and the Hauser Forum, I think there simply needs to be a space near the center of Cambridge that can accommodate 10-20 startups, or around 60 people.

I don’t think this can or should happen at St. John’s Innovation Center or at the Cambridge Science Park… they’re too far out from the city center. (Red Gate’s office works because they’ve got amenities like proper food on site.) Young startups need to be in a vibrant atmosphere, which generally doesn’t exist right now.

There is the CityLife Social Enterprise Centre, which has very cheap office space and is home to a number of small companies. (Some who were there last year have since moved to Red Gate’s offices, though new ones have also moved in.) This is absolutely the right idea. Unfortunately, I understand that the owner of the building is looking to tear it down & redevelop it; CityLife is in there for the next year or two until that happens.

Unfortunately, finding/creating an attractive space takes effort, resources (both time and money), and a decent business plan. I know the economics can work, though it might require a bit of “barn-raising” to make it happen. Just take a look at the space that Ann Arbor’s Tech Brewery has to offer above… surely Cambridge can do something similar!

A focus on Doing, not Learning

The Cambridge Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning is a good institution. My criticism is its focus on Learning… not Doing. Business plan competitions are fine, Enterprise Tuesday is interesting the first year or two (until you’re tired of hearing the same sessions/advice every year), and teaching students the elements of building a business is great. But it never extends to actively supporting the startups that are trying to get off the ground. A simple example… where is the list of student startups from Cambridge? Here’s the one from Ann Arbor.

Cambridge Enterprise should be in a position to help, but its focus is on commercializing university IP… not helping generic startups get off the ground. (Where a startup is leveraging university IP is clearly a different story, and they do offer free 40-minute business “surgeries” to anyone.)

This is one of the main reasons why I started the Cambridge Tech Meetup… to celebrate Doers. To help promote the entrepreneurs and businesses that aren’t just learning about taking a new technology to market, but those that are actually doing it. (There were many others, but this was a big one.)

Now, this isn’t to say that people in Cambridge just talk about new technologies and products, and don’t develop them. There are plenty of companies around that are “doing”. But the University and the organizations in orbit around the University, those that have the biggest effect on potential student entrepreneurs, need to switch their focus from learning to doing.

There are amazing lectures in Cambridge all the time; it’s all part of the 800-year-old Cambridge tradition of learning. To help breed more and better startups, the culture needs to believe in building and making things just as strongly. Which leads me to the next point below…

More smaller, dynamic groups

Here is a sampling of Ann Arbor groups: Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup, a2geeks, a2buildbunker, CoffeehouseCoders, Ignite Ann Arbor, A2 Mini Maker Faire.

Whereas in Cambridge, I know about Cambridge Tech Meetup, Cambridge OpenCoffee (which has been a bit anemic lately), SuperHappyDevClub, Refresh Cambridge, Cambridge Geek Nights and Cambridge Geek Day. (There are also paid events, like FOWA Tour Cambridge and StackOverflow Dev Day).

Oh, but wait… there are over 50 more groups for Ann Arbor listed here.

Cambridge needs to have people just plant a flag in the ground and start a group that focuses on cool stuff. This seems to be far more of a cultural issue than a capability issue. Individuals with some talent just need to get a small group together, do cool stuff, and make sure people talk about it. Of course some aggregation will be necessary to help people find the right groups… I’d be happy to advertise any and all of these at Cambridge Tech Meetups to help spread the word.

Summary

This started as a tale of two cities, but ended in lessons for the city of Cambridge. I’m just one person, these are just my opinions, and I’m sure there will be plenty of people that will disagree with me. But being in the midst of the startup scene in Cambridge has left me with an overarching feeling: poorly-tapped potential.

Cambridge is a fantastic city. There’s amazing talent, reaching from university labs to local startups to the R&D centers that are scattered around the city. There’s money ready to invest in cool new technologies and products. There’s mentors all over that have lived their startup experience and can help others’ with theirs.

What Cambridge needs is a cultural tune-up. (aka, a collective swift kick in the ass to go out there and MAKE something.) Some of the important things I think should happen:

• A place for startups to cluster
• A new focus on doing
• A whole mess of small, dynamic groups that do different cool things

Going to see speakers and hear talks is fine. (There are millions in Cambridge.) But lets start taking that knowledge and turn it into action, products, and companies.

What are your thoughts?