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.

Tag: Gary Smaby

CES Post 7: Winding Down

January 10, 2007 / / 1 Comment

This will be my final post from the BlogHaus, at about 11:00 am on Wednesday. It’s been great. Now sitting here with Tom Hawk of Zooomr and Andru Edwards of Gear Live and some of his people, who are all busy publishing. (Tom told me he won’t make his 1000 photo upload goal, but he’s halfway there. He only uploads really, really nice pix, though. Somebody else just said there are 30,000 photos now up in Flicker tagged CES 2007. Yikes! I did a bunch myself, mostly of the BlogHaus.)

Had a great time last night at the Blogger Business Summit party — met a lot of interesting folks. Then back to the BlogHaus, which was going at full capacity, Robert Scoble holding court in one corner, pizza in another. And lots in between. One new person I met was a guy who’s launching the first trade show for the the blog world….called, guess what? BlogWorld! Sounds like a serious endeavor, from a guy who’s run lots of successful shows — Rick Calvert is his name. It’s scheduled for November — in Vegas! Don’t know if there’s a site up yet, but looks like it’ll be at www.BlogWorldExpo.com.

Anyway, I’m going off to some other business soon here, then heading for the airport about 3:00. Just picked up all my email, and learned I missed the cut for a lunch with Guy Kawasaki in Minneapolis on the 19th, before his big talk at the U of MN. Apparently there were only 7 slots at the table, and my friend Gary Smaby tried to get me on the list, but too many muckety-mucks already, I guess… 🙂 [Thanks for trying, anyway, Gary.] But I’ll sure be there for the talk following, which is already sold out.

Guy should be very happy the temps are finally dropping in Minnesota (lows below zero this weekend, I hear) — because, as you may recall, what got him to our state in January was the National Pond Hockey Championships, which are held on one of our city lakes. And people were getting real nervous they wouldn’t have ice, with our temps hovering around 40 for so long. Sounds like the ice will be real hard by the time Guy gets here! Anyway, looking forward to seeing Guy again, hearing his talk, and seeing him play hockey.

Cheers from Vegas! It was a good trip…

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Gary Smaby: VC Turns Artist

November 22, 2006 / / 2 Comments

I don’t know too many people as remarkable as Gary Smaby. And he proved it again last night. More than 100 of Gary’s friends were invited to an artist’s reception to kick off the showing of his art at the Douglas-Baker Gallery in downtown Minneapolis.
Garysmabyshowcard It’s a project, I learned, that Gary’s been actively engaged in for about two years now. Gorgeous, striking work…as you can see.

The story of Gary’s career goes like this: he basically spent his 20s as an entrepreneur, his 30s as a technology analyst (starting with Piper Jaffray) and supercomputer consultant, his 40s as a VC, and in his 50s, he’s continued as a VC and also become an academic of sorts — and, yes, now an artist. As I said, remarkable. I’ve known him since 1982, respect him highly, and continue to be amazed at his talents.

The story of how he became an artist is really not so surprising when you read the story on his blog. He had some remarkable parents, too, and his mother was an artist.

In his VC life, Gary is part of Minneapolis-based Quatris Fund. Lately, he’s also been serving as VC-in-Residence at the Carlson School of Management’s Ventures Enterprise MBA program at the University of Minnesota. You can read more about Gary here in his bio. He’s shown in my first photo taken last evening explaining the techniques he uses in his print making.

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Congratulations, Gary. You give VCs a good name! I would love to hang one of those beauties in my house — soon as my next venture pays off, that is… 🙂

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