Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: Innovation (Page 44 of 78)

It Was Another Great ‘Minnedemo’ on Thursday Night

December 9, 2007 / / 0 Comments

On a brisk Minnesota evening in early December, what better to do than get together to drink beer and watch demos with 200+ of your closest tech friends and talk code, startups, business models, and all that good stuff?
Minnedemo1207crowd Thursday night, the scene for Minnedemo again was O’Gara’s Garage in St.Paul, and the joint was a-jumpin’! We didn’t need a band — we were all our own entertainment!
Minnedemo1207ogaras

Thanks to our sponsors, we not only got two free beers (or sodas) each, but we also could trade canned food donations for even more beer tickets, so we could then play big shot and buy beer for our friends. Trading canned food for beer….does_it_get_any_better_’n_that? It was a hoot….lots of great conversation and new friends made. You have to be at one of these things to really appreciate the energy of the Minnesota tech community! If you haven’t caught one yet, make sure you get to the next one in April (date to be announced). Hey, it’s FREE — whadya want?!? 🙂 That one will be the full-day-Saturday version we call “Minnebar.” It all part of Minnesota’s answer to the worldwide phenomenon called Barcamp — and we are definitely one of the most active locales outside the Valley.

Here’s a rundown on Thursday night’s great presenters, including some detail about the very cool new products they were demoing:

Ntractive LLC (Dale Jensen, Cofounder/CEO) – This startup, based in Grand Forks, is a winner of the “InnovateND” award, and is receiving its first-round funding from St. Paul-based RAIN Source Capital. Ntractive has developed a “hybrid” app for small business management called “Elements SBM.” This app, initially for the MacOS, provides web application flexibility with unprecedented ease of use not generally found outside of the traditional desktop application. The result is a visually elegant and technically innovative solution that allows small business users to quickly become more productive. Minnedemo1207dalejensen The company officially launches at MacWorld in San Francisco in mid-January, but chose Minnedemo (yay!) as the venue its first public demonstration. Till now, small businesses had to choose a desktop app or a web app, but, said Jensen, “With our hybrid app, we’ve made it possible for the first time to really have the best of both of those worlds.”

Zencoder Video Transcoding System (Jon Dahl, cofounder of Slantwise Design) – Zencoder provides “bulletproof video transcoding.” Minnedemo1207jondahl It’s described as a full-featured video transcoding platform that handles every aspect of video processing, from queuing to transcoding to storage. Video transcoding systems are complex and difficult to get right, Dahl said. Zencoder claims its platform is reliable and scalable, costs far less than a custom-built solution, and yet is highly customizable. To be notified when it’s released, enter your email address at the site.

Valtira (Morgan Catlin, Product Director) – The Valtira Online Marketing Platform is a complete online solution for marketing professionals. It’s “software as a service” — all you need is a web browser. Valtira manages the IT infrastructure, operations, and upgrades from its Tier 1 data center. The platform empowers the marketing team to manage online initiatives without the need for IT support. Components include Content Management, Campaign Management, Blogging and Forums, Prospect Management, Email Marketing, Sales Portals, Social Networking, Online Surveys, Real-time Analytics, and Support & Training. Valtira just announced a new, free campaign tracking solution that lets you track up to 15 marketing campaigns.

JRuby (Charles Nutter) – JRuby is a 100% pure-Java implementation of the Ruby programming language. The JRuby community recently announced the release of JRuby 1.1 beta 1, the first release toward their goal of JRuby 1.1. JRuby 1.1 represents a concerted focus on speed and refinement. Ruby code can completely compile in an Ahead Of Time (AOT) or Just In Time (JIT) mode, yielding a faster Ruby! It uses less memory than previous releases. The community wants people to download JRuby 1.1b1 and provide feedback: “test your applications and help us make JRuby 1.1 a great release.”

Grapheety (Gavin Quinn) – A map-based social exploration site. All stories and pictures are tagged onto the map by users. For a part-time effort by a bunch of fulltime employed guys, it’s quite an effort. Read more about the latest release here on the Grapheety blog.

All in all, it was another super Minnedemo, and I’m very glad I was there! If you missed it and want more info on the presenting firms, please visit their sites and make contact with them directly. They’ve love to hear from you! Once again, many thanks to co-organizers Dan Grigsby and Luke Francl for another great job, and also to our illustrious sponsors. They’re awesome.

Rock on, Minnesota tech!

Raising Startup Money? Here’s 20 Ways

November 27, 2007 / / 4 Comments

Speaking of Southern California [my last post was on Hollywood, if you can believe that], I think it’s time I did another post about Tech Coast Angels, one of the largest and oldest angel investing organizations in the country. Interesting that the term "angel" originated in the entertainment business, but TCA has little to do with Hollywood — rather, they have a whole lot to do with funding technology startups. Techcoastangels
This group is actually comprised of four networks of angels covering a large part of the SoCal geography, from Santa Barbara down to San Diego. My second favorite place, Orange County, is where the largest and oldest of these networks is situated.  And that’s where the subject of this post hails from.

Frank Peters, a successful, now semi-retired software entrepreneur (he sold his product to Wall Street firms starting back in the ’80s), has been active as an angel investor for 10 years, and the past five with Tech Coast Angels. On the side, he’s been producing a great podcast for the past two years called "The Frank Peters Show" — subtitled "Startup Stories in Angel Investing and Venture Capital." He’s averaged about 60 podcasts per year so far (pretty amazing). It’s very worthwhile listening for both entrepreneurs and current or potential angel investors — these are great interviews with really interesting subjects, and will definitely help you better understand angel investing. If you have an iPod or iPhone, they’re ideal to listen to in the car to make better use of that commute or long road trip.

Frank’s latest podcast is an interview with two experienced fellow TCA angels: Dave Berkus (how many angels do you know who’ve done 60 deals?), and Sid Mohasseb, who runs Venture Farm, which he describes as "an equity funding source that adds hands-on experience to the execution process." The topic of this podcast is "20 Ways to Fund Your Startup" — which is a list that Dave Berkus developed, but which all three guys discuss in this one-hour+ episode. (If you want to skip the general chat at the beginning and cut right to the chase, the "20 Ways" stuff begins at about 28:25 into the podcast.)  Here’s a quick rundown of the gist of the discussion if you don’t have time to listen right now:

Ways to Feed Your Startup Habit
Of the various ways to raise startup capital, angel financing is about in the middle of the continuum, Dave said. Some founders, however, try it too early — they don’t bootstrap enough first.  If you do, say the panelists, you’ll have a better chance of getting an audience in the first place to be considered to receive funding. So, here’s the rundown, courtesy of Dave, with some points noted by him and the others as he went through the list:

1) Credit cards – this can be $20-30k, even $50k in some cases, which will require a personal guarantee (but not mortgaging your house).
2) Securing arrangements with suppliers to slow down payments – assuming the business is started – or seeking deferred payment – lawyers typically do that – many even do pro bono work as a way to give back to the community.
3) Take out another mortgage – scary right now, but rates are quite low – shows founder has significant belief in what he or she is doing.
4) Wealthy relatives – "if you were born lucky" – more likely than others to invest.
5) Friends – "means you’re getting lucky, if you have good ones"  – can be on board of advisors, too, which costs you nothing.
6) Take on consulting work – even let your company be both a consulting and product development business at first.
7) Affiliate with an incubator – whether physical or virtual – they can help build management team, etc.
8) Well-connected attorney – angels listen to their recommendations.
9) "Rented" CFO – they don’t get paid for just getting the money, but for the financial systems they set up – the analysis of the data is what they deliver, and credibility.
10) Recruit a professional CFO – angels feel much more comfortable then.
11) Get prepaid licenses for your technology – a combination of selling service as well as product – maintenance agreements can be part of this (16-20% of list price of software) – recurring revenue –  customers are essentially paying for the engineering and product development – helps refine the value proposition – you don’t need to give it away for free.
12) Accelerated payments – of course, you have to have a rev stream first.
13) Royalties for very specific projects – let those fund your product development – seek out anyone that can benefit from the technology (not just your main target customers).
14) Angel financing – "later the better" to approach them, because you’re then more likely to get funded – however, can be anywhere on the continuum – the later it is, the more likely you’ll get funded (angels will look at what you’ve done so far – how many of the above you’ve taken advantage of) – if you go to angels earlier, your valuation will be lower.
15) Bank line of credit – $50k is available to almost anybody with good credit (with personal guarantee).
16) Strategic partnerships – customer or supplier, helping to develop, promising to distribute, etc – helps to define channels for later sales and distribution.
17) Venture capital, pension funds
18) Private placements
19) Professional restructurers
20) Investment bank, public offering

Dave noted again that angels are in the middle of this continuum.  "They’re an avenue for the sophisticated entrepreneur that understands all the other sources and where the risk is, and how fast they need the money."

In the closing discussion, Frank commented that TCA is ten years old now, and is getting more sophisticated.  Yes, the others agreed — and "more prudent,
cautious, jaded."  But Dave added that it’s certain they’re much more powerful as a group than as individuals. Frank noted that the angel financing business, at least for TCA, slows down at this time of year — from now till about January 10.

Then, the three discussed a recent university study, in which certain TCA members participated, called "Angels in Groups," for which a large amount of data on angel investments was gathered. (The link to the PDF of this study is on Frank’s web page for this podcast (show #132). One of the biggest surprises of the study, they agreed, was the average length of time to a liquidity event. Many angels think of it as generally 3 to 5 years, but they noted that was not happening for those deals studied.  Dave said the study found that 61% of the angels surveyed had returns greater than the amount they invested, "meaning 39% didn’t!"  The conclusion is that angel investing is more risky than most people thought. A diversity of investments is important "before you can count your chickens," said Dave. Luis Villalobos, the founder of TCA, thinks a portfolio of 25 or more investments is a minimum to expect good returns. The study showed that success happens when the angel is involved in the business. The entrepreneur benefits from the sharing of the experience of angels. Finally, the study found that it doesn’t tend to pay for angels to reinvest, which is somewhat worrisome, the panelists noted. "TCA traditionally funds 2-3% of deals they see," said Dave. "But when we’re ready to take deals to VCs, those firms only invest in 1% of what they see, on average."  Therein lies a problem, because angels often to have to invest a second or third time to keep the business going before it’s ready for the VCs. ‘"It’s a game of patience," Dave said.

Frank Peters concluded this podcast by saying he thinks there’s a need to "start testifying more about angel investing, more education, chewing over issues."  And he encourages suggestions for future podcasts by email to him at frank@thefrankpetersshow.com.

UPDATE (11/28):  And here’s a bonus link on Five of the Best Tips for Courting Angels.

Blowtorch Wants to Disrupt Hollywood (and there’s a Minnesota connection)

November 24, 2007 / / 0 Comments

"The Hollywood distribution model doesn’t work for the 18 to 24 year old demographic," says Kim Garretson, a Minneapolis-based business development consultant for Blowtorch Entertainment, a new film production startup based in California.Kimgarretsonblowtorch
"They want entertainment content here, there, and everywhere, in bite-sized portions. And they want it before they go to the theater." 
This fickle demographic is looking to be entertained, and for authenticity, he says. 

Does disruption sound like a big undertaking? Well, Blowtorch just announced $50 million in funding, so we can assume they’re serious. Garretson, a longtime Twin Cities startup veteran and business development whiz, left Best Buy last year, where he was a liaison to the venture capital community. Since then, he’s been quietly working in the Valley VC world, helping VCs vet deals and advising portfolio companies on distribution strategies. Garretson and a former business partner, Kelly Rodriques, went back into business together finding funding for early-stage deals. Then the Blowtorch deal came along. In addition to his involvement with the new company, Kim is currently finishing a business plan for a top Hollywood actor’s film company.

Rodrigues, who’s based in the Bay Area, recently became an entertainment and media industry venture partner for Seattle-based Ignition Partners. Last week, he announced the $50M first round for Blowtorch from Ignition and hedge funds, and now is well into launching the firm, where he’s taken on the CEO role. With his long background teaming with Garretson, he naturally turned to him as a business development adviser. "Blowtorch is disrupting the traditional Hollywood studio and distribution model for feature films targeting the college crowd," said Garretson. "Six feature films will be produced over the next 18 months, released as party-like events near the top 200 college campuses."

BlowtorchlogoThe company says its editorial vision is to "balance professional-grade
production with user participation to create a consistently engaging
experience." That will include full-length films,
professional-grade shorts, an online community, mobile offerings, and
live events. Blowtorch has assembled a diverse team of executives from
the entertainment, marketing, and technology industries with
expertise creating media for young adults. (This list is impressive — see the details here in the news release.)

The Secret Sauce: Getting Brands Involved
But the really interesting part of this whole thing, from a marketing standpoint, is how big advertisers will play in it. It should be no surprise that product placement and sponsorship by big brands is part of the plan here, especially when you look at the backgrounds of the management team and board. "We have set out to build a media company that delivers a consistently compelling experience that will lead to stronger engagement across all the channels our audience uses everyday," said CEO Rodrigues, "And we are confident we have found meaningful ways for marketers to be a part of this experience."  Garretson’s role in business development, he tells me, will be going after some of those deals with big brands.

On the user-gen side of the equation, the company has announced a contest called "The Blowtorch Short Film Big Screen Challenge."  BlowtorchcontestHere are the rules, short and sweet: "Submit a video of your best short film idea. The theme can be anything at all related to “TECHNOLOGY.”
Internet dating, killer robot vacuums, used time machine salesmen…whatever. Remember, it’s all about the idea, not how you shoot it. So, a video camera
is great, but a web-cam works too.
Shoot it, pitch it, just get your idea out there. If yours wins, we’ll fly
you out to LA to produce it for real.
Submit as many as you like, just keep them under 3 minutes."

By the way, funding like Blowtorch’s gets you some good PR, too. Check out the coverage that just magically 🙂 popped up in The Washington Post, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter….oh, and couple other rags you may have heard of: TechCrunch and PaidContent. Amazing what real marketing budgets can do, isn’t it?  And if you’re wondering what the budget will be to promote the films, I learned it’s $3 milllion — per film.

So, there you have it, gang. I keep telling you Twin Cities startup folks are into some interesting deals!
Just leave it to me, your trusty, intrepid bi-coastal reporter (left
coast and third coast), to fill you in on these Minnesota-California
connections (read: real money). I got more, too, so stay tuned….

UPDATE (12/29/07):  I love the fact that I got to this story before Fortune Magazine did.

‘Social DNA’: Do You Know Where Your Digital Genes Are?

November 14, 2007 / / 1 Comment

You knew it had to be coming: a way to map your online social self. My god, how did we get along without this till now? Thank you, eSnips (I think). Esnipslogo
I mean, Facebook asks some questions when you create your profile there [many of them lame, certainly for adults]. And it seems to me MySpace does, too — but then I never go there anymore.  [I remember they force you to tell your age on your profile, so I went with the max they would allow: 91.] Do I need another social network now?  Well, let me think about that… 🙂  But I went through the sign-up procedure, anyway. After all, if I’m doing a post, I’d better. And it was interesting. More on that in a bit.  First, some background…

eSnips is a content-sharing site that officially launched at DEMOfall in September 2006 (my coverage). CEO Yael Elish, a veteran Internet entrepreneur, told me then that her site lets "everyday people share content in one place, without having to manage so many accounts."  She said then that it was about sharing, publishing, and even selling your creative work — and was all free. At that time, eSnips offered 1GB of free space, but that’s now been upped to 5GB. Traffic to the site appears to be growing nicely when viewed at Alexa.

So, what’s this new wrinkle of "Social DNA" all about?  From today’s press release:

A key premise of Web 2.0 services is the ability to discover like-minded people through common friends or tags. eSnips Social DNA takes this ability to the next level by matching people with others who resemble them most based on hundreds or thousands of common defined aspects of their lives. It’s done through a series of fun, creative and often intriguing 1-2 minute online quizzes across multiple topics (referred to as Social Genes).

The multiple-choice quizzes are just one type of “Social Gene” that makes up a user’s Social DNA.  The other type is a List, where users can express their musical, literary, cinematic and even dietary preferences.  A List can express personal favorites in a more diverse way than a Quiz, which is why a mixture of both is essential to get comprehensive Social DNA results.

Immediately upon answering the first question, users get exposed to others who responded like them.  As they continue the quiz, the matches change until eventually a user only sees the highest scoring matches. They also can see how their answers compared to rest of the population, shown through a uniqueness score and set of graphs. Upon completing a quiz, users can quickly and easily create a fun widget to post on their website or blog.

Here’s a screenshot of the page I got after I went through my first quiz, in the category of Business & Technology.
I chose the Web 2.0 quiz (natch). As you can see, only 30% answered like me, so I’m "in the minority" — how special! This is just one quiz of many I could have done.  I didn’t count how many quizzes there were, but I’m assuming there would have to be hundreds, eventually, anyway. [Note the service is, of course, labeled beta — what isn’t?] Esnipsresultspg_2

My take after going through one quiz is that the questions were a bit trivial — even silly. I think eSnips is trying too hard to be funny, in an attempt to make the process fun (which of course it has to be).  I just question the scientific nature of all this, I guess, if there is any.  Should there be?  More than a few of the questions didn’t offer an answer that I liked.  Nonetheless, I think this Social DNA concept is fascinating, and I have no doubt that eSnips users — mostly all younger than me — will eat it up.  Why?  Because it plays right into the powerful need to get your online profile "just right."  I heard a stat last week that active social networkers are spending up to an hour a week on average fiddling with their profile.  This will enable them to go nuts like on no other site I know!  If you’re into finding/discovering people online (can you say dating?), this will be a very engaging and "sticky" feature for eSnips. I think it’s bound to boost traffic to the site, bigtime.  It will be interesting to watch that play out over the next weeks and months.

Defrag 8: Final Tidbits and Recap

November 12, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Well, a few days have gone by since Defrag ended, and I always like to let things settle a bit before I have my final say on a conference. This is that post, which also captures some highlights from the rest of the second day’s program.

The "Next-Level Discovery" panel featured an eclectic group, including an IT professor from Berkeley (Marti Hearst), a general manager of Dow Jones Factiva (Lou Paglia), the inventor of Jabber and now working at Wikia on a project to create an open search engine (Jeremie Miller), and the CEO and cofounder of code-search site Krugle (Steve Larsen). Discoverypanel
Brad Horowitz of Yahoo was the moderator. Here’s a sampling of what we heard:

Hearst said discovery is about finding things you weren’t expecting to find. But, today, in the enterprise, "people are about search." She said today it’s about navigating, whereas in the future it will be just "saying what you want." Hearst said we’re starting to see the convergence of two trends: massive collections of implicit user behavior, and better handling of longer queries.

Lou Paglia is the GM of the corporate research division at Dow Jones Factiva, which "normalizes thousands of news information sources from around the world for corporate research people." He said that in the enterprise today, Facebook is a way of discovering, as is checking stocks, for example. Jeremie Miller, open source guru that he is, said that, for next-level discovery to happen, we need better connection of independent parties. "The fabric must grow there."  Steve Larsen spoke of efforts to make search smarter, and that there are now more than 100 vertical search sites (his company being one example). "These could do to the major search sites what cable TV did to the networks."  These vertical search sites are about specific interests of consumers, he said. Because they constrain what one is looking for, you can assume implicit things about them. And you can present results that provide context, the real meaning of discovery."  Horowitz said Flickr (a Yahoo property) mines the "interestingness" of people and "reflects that back to the community" — and that this is "better than just explicit things like ratings." There’s value in these implicit behaviors, and it lowers the barriers of participation.

In the discussion period afterwards, Factiva’s Paglia spoke of the "hidden web" and how it’s a big area of need in the corporate world. He said his firm is seeing a change in the paradigm. "How do you get beyond the article? What’s the actual knowledge in the news? What about the data element to help managers make decisions? We want to help people get to where they want to go."  Krugle’s Larsen said his company’s code search engine can even link all the way back to the market requirements that caused a given piece of code to be developed. Wikia’s Miller said "the dark web will cease to be known … information wants to be found." Doc Searls asked from the front row, "What about searching old web pages?"  Miller said "these are a real treasure, but it’s very hard." Factiva’s Paglia, however, said "we’re getting there." Another audience question was about social search. The panelists noted that one company working in that area, Me.dium, was here, and that Microsoft has such a project. Horowitz said Del.icio.us (also a Yahoo property) is "headed more this way."  Esther Dyson asked whether more structure was needed for search. Horowitz said it depends on who’s providing that structure. Larsen said visualization is one way to give search more structure. Paglia asked, "Why should we have to search at all? You should just be able to log onto your CRM and be told what things you need to action on today." Horowitz closed the panel by commenting that "it’s amazing how ossified search results are!" People are locked into a certain look or way that search results are presented to them, but implied this needs to change, to get better.

The Elephant in the Room
A special add to the program, who flew in just for the second day of Defrag, was technologist Kevin Marks of Google. Kevinmarksonstage
Formerly with Technorati and Apple, Marks said his area of responsibility at his new employer covers basically everything except search and ads. The word was that he came to event in response to one of the impromptu Open Space discussions the previous day, called " Closed Private," which took issue with Google’s new "Open Social" spec — as it might relate to the enterprise, at least.  And the word was Kevin showed up to explain his side… 🙂  A great recap of his talk was done by my friend Sean Ammirati — it’s here on  Read/Write Web.  Also, for those of you into the details, here’s Kevin Mark’s slide presentation. A key thing many people may not be noticing is that two of the already announced partners for Open Social are Oracle and Salesforce.com. So remember this, friends, as Kevin said: "Business is social, too."  I say that’s a key takeaway from this event. And I think it’s great that Google chose to show up here. It really speaks to the significance of this first-year gathering called Defrag.

And From Sponsor Yahoo….
Jeremy Zawodny of the Yahoo Developer Network gave an interesting presentation, saying his areas of interest were Open Source, Social Everywhere ("the ‘Net always has been"), Web Services, and Web Platforms. Zawodnyfuture
His "Future" slide shows where he’s focused, so I include it here.  For more, see Jeremy’s blog.

The Guys With the Money
How could there be a conference without a VC panel?  It just can’t happen. But we were very lucky to have partners from arguably three of the most successful firms investing in Web 2.0 technology today: SoftTech VC (Jeff Clavier), Union Square Ventures (Al Wenger), and the Foundry Group (Brad Feld). Here are some highlights:

Feld said there’s a notion now that it only takes $2-3 million in invested capital today to become a profitable business in this space, well below what’s traditionally been the case. Clavier noted that "the $100k you spend today to develop your prototype is like $1 million ten years ago." Wenger reminded us, though, that "if you fall behind after you hit a vein, that’s problematic." 

Vcpanel

Feld said his first investment as a VC was only $50k (Net Genesis), and the he only invested $100k in Harmonics (which developed Guitar Hero). "A typical seed investment now is $250-500k, where it used to be $5 million," he said. "It’s faster now to get to a proof point." Later, we learned that Clavier really doesn’t invest in "enterprise software" [though one would assume he’s interested in social networking as it applies to business, or why was he at an event that was more enterprise focused?], whereas Feld chimed in that "he loves enterprise software!"  He thinks it’s amazing that so many VCs "don’t like it anymore."  Consumer-oriented Web 2.0 deals have certainly taken much of the attention away, but a major trend is emerging whereby those technologies are now leading advancements in enterprise productivity.  And Feld inserted here his take on that, which I think is a major takeaway from Defrag: "I like what I’m seeing in enterprise IT spending increase projections for 2008 — double digits, maybe 20%," he said. Most VCs want to fit into one or the other category (consumer or enterprise), "but I’ve never been able to separate them." Wenger noted the huge difference in the two is that, in an enterprise business, "you must focus on building a sales team." No small undertaking, to be sure, nor cheap.  Feld noted that, of course, very few companies become successful on both sides.  His advice to startups: "Don’t overcommit too early which side you’re going to focus on."

As the afternoon’s sessions continued , we heard a very good presentation by Nova Spivack, founder of Radar Networks, called "Towards a Usable Semantic Web". He referred to the "third decade of the Web" as being about "transforming it from a file server to a database."  For a selection of his slides, see my Defrag pix on Flickr. Nova’s firm has introduced a new service called Twine, which he says represents the next level in knowledge management —  "knowledge networking." Nova defines that term as "social networking + semantic web + collaboration + search."

My Recap of Defrag Version 1.0
This first-year event was great, in nearly every way.  In fact, I can’t think of a single thing I’d change when I fill out the comment form — except maybe to publish a list of attendees. [Unfortunately, the sponsor wiki sites were not fully populated with everyone in attendance — which amazed me. Perhaps they were expecting everyone to sign up on their own?  They didn’t.] It was really the people attending this event that made it such a rich expertience.  That was the key, and I say hooray to the producers for getting so many key players out for this one.  At one point, producer Eric Norlin said it was like "getting the band back together" from Esther Dyson’s great PC Forum events, now retired. I mean, when you have people like David Weinberger, Doc Searls, Chris Locke, Esther, Jerry Michalski, and so many other early Internet pioneers in the same room, it can’t help being a thought-provoking experience!  I was taken by what Steve Larsen said about the event. He told me: "I was at the first PopTech conference, and I also attended the early PC Forums. This event has the same feel."  Steve also pointed me to a blog post about those early days of this core group of Internet and online community pioneers, which gives you a feel for what things were like back then. It’s good to look back, but I also think Defrag made some history of its own on these two days in Denver in late 2007.

As I spoke to Eric Norlin on the second day, I think he and
a colleague really hit on the essence of Defrag #1: "It’s all about
questions, not answers."  That really wraps it up as best as anyone can. And I know that I’ll be back again next year for more.

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