Okay… now what the hell does that mean?  It means that no matter what device you use to come to my blog, it’s always going to be readable and look nice.  If you see this on a desktop browser, it will have multiple columns and full-size images.  If you read it on a mobile browser (aka iPhone/Android), it will just be one column, and the images will have scaled down to fit the screen.  Want a better example?  If you’re reading this on your desktop, slowly change the size of the window (drag the bottom right corner of your screen) until it’s as small as you can make it.  As you do it, you’ll see how the blog’s design changes to fit the way you’re reading it.

I wish I could say I did this myself, but in fact I used the Scherzo theme from Leon Paternoster.  If you’re a design novice like myself and use WordPress, it’s very easy to implement.

It’s hard to state how much of a sea change this is in web design, and it was all started by Ethan Marcotte.  (I’m lucky enough to count him as a brother-in-law.)  If you are a web designer, make sure you buy his book on responsive design.  Read it, and use it!

If you’re interested, you can follow me on Google+ here.

EDIT:  I’ve also done some magic so you can go to my Google+ profile by going to http://jedchristiansen.com/+

Awesome video on startups, entrepreneurship, business

This has absolutely nothing to do with Google+, but if you’ve got an hour, I highly recommend watching the video below.  It’s Kevin Rose (founder of Digg) interviewing Chris Sacca, one of the most interesting investors in Silicon Valley today.  (He was one of the first investors in Twitter, for example.)

Chris has long had a great reputation amongst entrepreneurs, and from this video I can completely understand why.

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.

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:

Aside: I got my degree in aerospace engineering because I love the technology and the aspiration; I avoided working in the field because it’s too cyclical, corporate and dependent on government help.

But onwards and upwards…

Earlier this summer SpaceX made a few presentations outlining some of their future plans. And those plans are AWESOME. Here’s what they’ll be up to in the near term as they develop the Falcon X line of rockets:

The current Falcon 9 rocket can get 10.5k kg into Low Earth Orbit. More tangibly, the Falcon 9 puts the equivalent to three and a half Hummer H2′s into orbit. Doing this requires nine first-stage engines and one second-stage engine.

SpaceX currently has the Falcon 9 Heavy rocket in development. This essentially straps on two additional first-stage sections for a total of 27 first-stage rocket engines! This is a healthy additional boost, and gets 32k kg into orbit. So if you ever wanted to compact eleven Hummer H2s and send them into orbit, this rocket can do it for you.

The Falcon 9 Heavy will also be able to lift more into orbit than Atlas V, Delta IV, or Ariane 5. There are only two systems on the drawing board that are potentially larger than this rocket, and they’re both Russian vehicles that don’t look likely to actually be built. (Of course it will cost you; $56million for a Falcon 9 and $95million for the Falcon 9 Heavy.)

But Space X is looking at developing a large new version of it’s first stage engine, Merlin. (These are speculative right now because it would take $1billion to develop the engine, but clearly thought out.) Powered by this engine, the rocket could put 38k kg into orbit.

Suddenly, this image gets very interesting:

This outlines how SpaceX could operate a Super-Heavy-Lift Launch System. The Falcon X Heavy could lift 125k kg into orbit, and the Falcon XX could lift 140k kg into orbit.

Within six months as the Space Shuttle program shuts down, there will be NO operational Super-Heavy-Lift system operational. And the largest consistently successful Super-Heavy-Lift system was the Saturn V rocket that sent the Apollo missions to the moon.

Where the Saturn V could lift 119k kg to orbit, the Falcon XX could potentially lift 140k kg to orbit. If successful, this would be the heaviest payload sent by man into space. (To complete the metaphor, it’s the same as lifting forty-seven Hummer H2s into orbit.)

Summary

I love the ambition of SpaceX, and that they’ve gone from nothing to multiple successful launches in less than a decade without any public funding. (Though they have had key public contracts to resupply the Space Station.) That they’ve designed it from a blank sheet, not being required to refit existing infrastructure or deal with an existing bloated bureaucracy is brilliant, and probably part of the reason they’ve been successful. Lean and mean…

Hopefully this gives you a sense of the future of the space part of the aerospace industry in the USA.

But I would never have known about all of these shows or gotten tickets without Songkick. If you are interested in live music AT ALL, you need to do yourself a favor and register with Songkick TODAY. It takes a minute to register, and another couple of minutes to hook Songkick up to your iTunes library, last.fm profile or Pandora profile. Three minutes after starting, you’ll start seeing e-mails from Songkick when the bands that you like are coming to your city… before tickets go on sale.

There are very few sites on the internet I’m truly passionate about, and Songkick is one of them. Otherwise, I would have never been able to see this kick-ass final encore song from The National last night… done completely unplugged in a crowd of 5000 people. Amazing…

Links to specific shows, etc.:
The National last night
Arcade Fire tomorrow night
The New Pornographers next week
Kings of Leon just before Christmas
My profile (you can “track” me to see what concerts I’m going to)
My “gigography”: all the shows I’ve been to since my very first concert in 1994 (Pink Floyd!)

PS - Songkick is a London-based startup, and a Y Combinator startup, so they’ve got a very bright future ahead of them.

Edit My Web!

Go to any webpage, click “Edit My Web!” and play around. Instead of having a page of raw text, you’ve got a page of editable text. Of course, you’re only editing the text on your screen and not what’s on the actual site/server, but that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting.

I had a little fun with Fred Wilson and TechCrunch. Here are the before and after screenshots:

Fred Wilson Before:

Fred Wilson After:

TechCrunch Before:

TechCrunch After:

Disclaimer

I take no responsibility for what you choose to do with this bookmarklet. (No matter how epic a prank you pull!) Also, I didn’t write it, I’m just the most recent to promote it after hearing some people at work talk about it. (Just click this link for Google search results for the javascript.)

Normally I wouldn’t write about it, but I have to tell you about the Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha. I first heard about it from David Pennock on his “Oddhead” blog. What’s incredible about the theme is a) it’s free and b) it’s incredibly customizable.

The Suffusion theme supports a wide variety of layouts, with sidebars, various headers and footers, and widgets everywhere. And then those widgets can be customized. In fact, it looks like every single element of every feature of WordPress can be customized. It’s even got a variety of standard icons built in (for Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.) and supports key products like Feedburner, Google Analytics, etc.

So if you’re looking for a new theme for your blog, check out Suffusion.

(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.)

The week of 25-29 January 2010 is going to be absolutely awesome in Cambridge. There are three great events that you need to attend.

Of these, it’s most important that you come to the Cambridge Tech Meetup. We’ll be kicking the year off with a bang and six “wicked awesome” technology demos, from people/companies based in Cambridge.

Tuesday – January 26th – Enterprise Tuesday

Time: 6:30-7:30pm lecture (registration from 6pm, networking afterward)
Location: Lecture Theatre 0, Engineering Department, Trumpington Street
Speakers: Neil Davidson, Co-Founder and joint CEO, Red Gate Software; Steve Barlow, Co-Founder, Alphamosaic; Alex Mehta, Communications Director, Judicium

Enterprise Tuesday is a great event, and the topic for next week is “Building a Dream Team.” I recommend this specifically because I think incredibly highly of Neil Davidson, who co-founded Red Gate software and continues to serve as co-CEO. (In addition to founding the Business of Software conference, serving as Chairman of the Cambridge Network, and starting the Springboard programme at Red Gate.)

Link: http://www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/enterprise/timetable.html

*** Wednesday – January 27th – Cambridge Tech Meetup ***

Time: 6:30pm doors for 7pm start of demos (additional Q&A and discussion afterward)
Location: Lecture Theatre 1, Judge Business School, Trumpington Street

If you have to pick one event, come to the Cambridge Tech Meetup! (Yes, I started it with the help of many, many others.)

Six products will have has seven minutes to demo their technology/product; all of them developed in Cambridge! Everything from new display technology to cool video search technology to audio analysis and 3d model building via webcam will be demo’ed.

Demo companies/technologies are:

• Light Blue Optics – http://lightblueoptics.com
• Taptu – http://taptu.com/
• Cambridge IPTV – http://www.cambridge-iptv.com/
• AudioAnalytic – http://audioanalytic.com/
• ProFORMA – http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~qp202/my_papers/BMVC09/
• Prismastar – http://www.prismastar.com/

Link for info and to RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/Cambridge-Tech-Meetup/calendar/12221063/

(The sharp-eyed among you will notice that this takes place shortly after the big Apple announcement on the 27th. I’ll be sure to have the screen tuned to a live-blog or tweet-stream until the demo’s kick off.)

Thursday – January 28th – Cambridge Business Lecture: Dan Pink

Time: 6pm start (networking afterward)
Location: Robinson College, Grange Road
Speaker: Dan Pink, best-selling author, writer, speaker

This event is a Cambridge Business Lecture, hosted by the Cambridge Network. Dan Pink is a great author/writer, and I think it’s just fantastic he’ll be speaking in Cambridge. If you’re in town, go.

Link: http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/events/article/default.aspx?objid=65628