Dennis Crowley Spotted At NYU ITP Winter Show

Album

The New York Tech MeetUp After Party: January 2012

The Best NYTM After Party Ever

The NYU ITP Show Was Amazing

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeI meant to show up last year but for some reason the event fell through the crack of things. I am so glad I got to show up this year. If you could go to just one event in December, it would be this one. And there are some great Holiday parties in town this month.

December Events

I showed up early and stayed the entire time. I went from stall to stall. And when I was done I made repeat visits to some stalls. It was a mind blowing experience.

FourSquare Should Rent A Stadium

NYU is accessible like Columbia is not. NYU has a great location. And the ITP has the distinction of having had Dennis Crowley there a few years back. He probably is its most famous alum.

Relationships

Image via WikipediaRecently I read this article. I think it could inspire conversations.

The Atlantic: All The Single Ladies

Some observations I made:

(1) Having a job and paying her own bills is still such a big deal for this woman. This is 2011. You'd think having a job by now would be something to take for granted for women.

(2) There is no one right lifestyle. True. But a lot of people end up with default lifestyles rather than the one they would actively pick for themselves. If you are to stay single, make sure it is an active, conscious choice.

My favorite part of the article was this one:

In her new book, Unhitched, Judith Stacey, a sociologist at NYU, surveys a variety of unconventional arrangements, from gay parenthood to polygamy to—in a mesmerizing case study—the Mosuo people of southwest China, who eschew marriage and visit their lovers only under cover of night. “The sooner and better our society comes to terms with the inescapable variety of intimacy and kinship in the modern world, the fewer unhappy families it will generate,” she writes.

The matrilineal Mosuo are worth pausing on, as a reminder of how complex family systems can be, and how rigid ours are—and also as an example of women’s innate libidinousness, which is routinely squelched by patriarchal systems, as Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá point out in their own analysis of the Mosuo in their 2010 book, Sex at Dawn. For centuries, the Mosuo have lived in households that revolve around the women: the mothers preside over their children and grandchildren, and brothers take paternal responsibility for their sisters’ offspring.

Sexual relations are kept separate from family. At night, a Mosuo woman invites her lover to visit her babahuago (flower room); the assignation is called sese (walking). If she’d prefer he not sleep over, he’ll retire to an outer building (never home to his sisters). She can take another lover that night, or a different one the next, or sleep every single night with the same man for the rest of her life—there are no expectations or rules. As Cai Hua, a Chinese anthropologist, explains, these relationships, which are known as açia, are founded on each individual’s autonomy, and last only as long as each person is in the other’s company. Every goodbye is taken to be the end of the açia relationship, even if it resumes the following night. “There is no concept of açia that applies to the future,” Hua says.

This is exotic, don't you think?

Nuggets From The Paulson Auditorium

Image by aJ GAZMEN ツ GucciBeaR via FlickrStartUp Week: Final Event: Biggest Event?

- 2005, there were very few blogs around.
- Vin Vacanti has a great blog.
- Fred Wilson, Mark Suster, Chris Dixon, Brad Feld.
- Josh Auerbach: "All my knowledge comes from blogs."
- It is easy to do market research.
- The lean startup movement.
- You will be amazed by how many people are willing to talk to you.
- The best way to build a business is without any investment money.
- We don't do NDAs. We will laugh at you if you ask.
- Outsourcing is not an option.
- If your proposal is outside the thesis of a VC firm, you are not going anywhere.
- Talk to people. Engage with people at their blogs.
- Cool. Uncool. Cool again.
- Chris Dixon: "1/3rd of my companies are profitable with seed money."
- You have to be active online.
- You have to blog. You have to tweet. This is the number one piece of advice. You are not going anywhere in tech without these.
- Internships with big brand name companies are overrated.
- Entrepreneurs - it's a personality type.
- If you send a form email, you will get a form response.
- Show me that you put some work into that email. You read up on me.
- No investor will read a business plan.
- You and your team.
- What all could go wrong? What can I do to mitigate? Put down in writing.
- Build your relationship with investors over a period of time.

StartUp Week: Final Event: Biggest Event?

I started out thinking all events are created equal. But you get hints thrown in here and there. There is expectation in the air. The event tomorrow looks like will be the biggest event of the week. And I am looking forward to it.

Thursday, 4/14: Fundraising: VCs, Angels and Accelerators Chris Dixon (@cdixon), Albert Wenger (@albertwenger), Lawrence Lenihan (@lawrencelenihan), Firstmark Capital, Hilary Gosher (@hilbil175), Insite Venture Partners, David Tisch (@davetisch), TechStars

April 14, Thursday, 6-8 PM, NYU Tisch Hall, Paulson Auditorium (UC-50), 40 W. 4th Street

2,000 Squats

Image via WikipediaI just did 2,000 squats. Don't get too impressed. I did it 50 at a time. But do get impressed. I think I could have done 1,000 more.

This is my way of getting into the mood for StartUp Week. I did not even know it existed. I was aware of Social Media Week. I was aware of Internet Week. But StartUp Week? Well, it exists. And I am going to all events. I am showing up in my ninja outfit.

StartUp Week At NYU April 6-15

April 6, Wednesday, 6-9 PM, NYU Stern, Kaufman Management Center (44 W 4th St), Room 2-60
April 7, Thursday, 6-8:30 PM, NYU Law School (Vanderbilt Hall), Tishman Auditorium, 40 Washington Square South
April 11, Monday, 5-9 PM, Kaufman Management Center Room M1-100
April 12, Tuesday, 6-8:30 PM, Room M1-100
April 13, Wednesday, 5-7 PM, The Courant Institute 251 Mercer Street, Room 109
April 14, Thursday, 6-8 PM, NYU Tisch Hall, Paulson Auditorium (UC-50), 40 W. 4th Street

StartUp Week At NYU April 6-15

April 6, Wed, Mark Suster (@msuster) NYU 6-9 PM

April 7, Thu, Brad Feld (@bfeld), Adam Rich, and Nate Westheimer (@innonate) 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM NYU Law School (Vanderbilt Hall), Tishman Auditorium, 40 Washington Square South

Monday, 4/11: Develop, Design, Pitch Series mongoDB (@mongodb) Kevin Kearney (@kkearney) and Courtney Lewis of Hard Candy Shell Eric Friedman (@EricFriedman) 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM Kaufman Management Center Room M1-100 44 W 4th St

Tuesday, 4/12: Variety of Tech Entrepreneurs Panel 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM Room M1-100 Spencer Fry (@spencerfry), Carbonmade Hilary Mason (@hmason) bit.ly Vin Vacanti (@vacanti), Yipit Yasser Ansari (@trisomy21), Project Noah Seth Frader-Thompson (@fraderT), EnergyHub Colin Freund (@Swimmingloaf), Agennix AG James McChullouhgh, Exosome Diagnostics

Wednesday, 4/13: Online Communities 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM The Courant Institute 251 Mercer Street, Room 109 Kyle Bragger (@kylebragger), Forrst Chris Maguire (@revolvingdork), Postling Joe Alminawi, OMGPOP Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa), Neighborhoodr Vanessa Bertozzi (@Van_Bertozzi), Etsy Peter Rojas (@peterrojas), gdgt

Thursday, 4/14: Fundraising: VCs, Angels and Accelerators Chris Dixon (@cdixon), Albert Wenger (@albertwenger), Lawrence Lenihan (@lawrencelenihan), Firstmark Capital, Hilary Gosher (@hilbil175), Insite Venture Partners, David Tisch (@davetisch), TechStars

The Organizers of StartUp Week

Patrick Chen's Entrepreneur Exchange Summit

I met Patrick Chen at this Hackers And Founders MeetUp. He is a great guy. He said he was a MBA student at NYU, and he had teamed up with a techie friend, who was a full timer with a hedge fund, to form a gaming startup. I paid him the ultimate compliment. I suggested the two of them should team up with me on my startup. He said we can talk. We did talk. We became Facebook friends. We exchanged a few tweets. A few days later he said it is best he stuck to his gaming startup.

Long story short I am going to Patrick's conference on Friday. I tried to suggest they should waive the $45 fee for me since "I will be blogging about the event extensively before and after." Let's put it this way. I ended up having to pay.

Event At Hunch: Gender Talk (3)

I got off the train at Union Square because I was running a little early, maybe a lot early. That gave me more walking distance. I take joy in walking. Right by Union Square on the sidewalk I got randomly stopped by an Ethiopian woman with a Masters from New York University who worked for a children's organization. It was a nice talk. I sent her a Facebook email the following day.

September NY Tech MeetUp Needs To Feature Reshma Saujani

Image via CrunchBase

I have an email from Nate Westheimer from two days ago and I don't see any mention of the Reshma Saujani name anywhere. This is so lame. Nate can do better than this. There have been times before when someone who was not listed as a speaker spoke. I hope this is one of those instances.

Reshma Saujani: Innovation, Ethnic Pride, Thought Leadership
AnyClip Is Live Now
AnyClip.com: Second Thoughts
AnyClip.com: More Thoughts

One of the founders of the NY Tech MeetUp Dawn Barber first came up with the idea that Reshma Saujani should speak for five minutes at the September NY Tech MeetUp. That was back in June.

Reshma 2010: New Office: Party: June 21 Monday
Maloney's Idiotic Debate Non Stand Can Be Countered Through Use Of Social Media

Why would Reshma speak at a NY Tech MeetUp? It is about tech and it is about gender. Reshma Saujani is the national candidate to the tech sector.

Reshma Saujani "Gets" Tech
Reshma Saujani, Scott Heiferman, Chris Hughes: TechCrunch Disrupt
Reshma Saujani: South Asian Powerhouse, National Candidate To The Tech Sector
Reshma 2010 Clean Tech Event July 27 Tuesday
A Clean Tech Experience

This is about the New York tech scene refusing to play second fiddle forever. This is about the NY tech scene getting a voice of its own in Washington DC.

NY1, NY1, NY1, NY1, NY1

This is also about gender, a raging topic in tech these past few weeks.

Aliza Sherman Takes Mike Arrington To Task
Women In Tech: The Debate Rages On
Gender Talks
FoodSpotting Is The Next FourSquare
Mike Arrington Is A Sexist Pig: Say PeeeeG!
Tech, Women, Diversity
September 14 Will Birth The New Woman

Nate Westheimer to newtech-1-anno.
show details Sep 1 (2 days ago)
Hey Meetupsters!

Next WEDNESDAY, September 8th, connect with 850 fellow technologists at the beautiful NYU Skirball Center for another evening of non-stop startup thrills.

RSVP now-- this is going to be big!
http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/calendar/14336711/

We've got an unbeatable lineup of talent for you --
Propercloth, Grovo, MeetMoi, Nearsay, Apture, JIBE, and an exclusive demonstration of Google Goggles! (More TBA)

Get your RSVP: we'd love to see you!
http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/calendar/14336711/

The NYTM is produced in partnership with the NYU Stern Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Also, thanks as always to our sponsors, DFJ Gotham and Wilson Sonsini who help make NYTM possible (with your support too!).

See you soon,

Nate and Brandon
NY Tech Meetup

P.S. If you can't make the event, you can watch live (and again after the curtain drops!) -- thanks to our partnership with Livestream -- at nytm.org/livestream!

P.P.S. Anyone looking to launch a tech startup should check out the Founder Institute - an entrepreneur training program that doesn't even require you to quit your day job. The Fall NYC Semester is accepting applications until this Friday, Sept. 3.

P.P.P.S. We're really bummed about the scheduling conflict with Rosh Hashanah and have posted a full response on the NYTM Meetup page.

Learn more about our venue:

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
New York University
566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South)
www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu / 212.992.8484

To visit NY Tech Meetup, go here:
http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/

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A NY Tech MeetUp For Sindre Aarsaether

Image of Sindre Aarsaether

Sindre, if you don't know him, is one uber hacker. He is a geek, a nerd. He is Singularity. He is a friend. He is a foreigner. He is Scandinavian. He has a friend who likes to go couchsurfing.

Welcome, Sindre, back to New York. I will see you tonight.

And there is a fresh email from Brandon Diamond.

* Betterfly: connect with betterists to improve yourself
* HotPotato: share what you're doing with friends
* Learnvest: educational finance resource for women
* Frontal: rich web apps from simple markup
* StuffBuff: auctions anywhere you want them
* HowAboutWe: pick your perfect date then find a match
* Jetsetter: insider access to the places you want to go
* Comixology: read comics on the go and on the web

We'll also be hearing from Clay Shirky who'll be discussing "generosity as a design problem". 

Plus, the entire evening will be guest emceed by the wonderful Dina Kaplan, co-founder of blip.tv.

So come on down to NYU Skirball at 7 PM for another evening with NYC's brightest movers and shakers.

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
New York University
566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South)
www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu / 212.992.8484

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Internet Week: Going To Three Events So Far

Image via Wikipedia

I signed up for the NY Tech MeetUp after Nate's blast email. I missed out the last NY Tech MeetUp, the one in May.

The Biggest NY Tech MeetUp Ever?

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 Laguardia Place
New York, NY 10012

A few minutes back I got an email from Neha Chauhan. She hosted the best panel of all events I went to during Social Media Week. And there is also that ethnic pride thing. So I signed up for the Women In Tech Media Conference. That is Monday evening.

Monday, June 07, 2010 from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (ET)
277 Park Avenue
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10172

Reshma 2010, Square, And Pro.Act.Ly
Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever

Email marketing works.

So far I have resisted the Ignite event. The pull is strong, I must admit.

I signed up for the World Cup party. Okay, I don't need convincing there.

Saturday, June 12, 2010 from 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM (ET)
The Parlour Bar
250 West 86th Street (at Broadway)
Downstairs
New York, NY 10024

"A tree is a tree, how many do you need to look at?"
- Ronald Reagan

A party is a party, how many do you need to go to?

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How To Date An Indian: Andrea Miller

Amitabh Bachchan via last.fm

This blog post by an Andrea Miller normally would not fall in tech and biz categories - technbiz.blogspot.com - except that she is an entrepreneur, and this blog has touched upon the world of online dating before. Besides, anything goes. And this post seems to be Miller's first and only post at The Huffington Post. She comes across as a fairly accomplished individual. Most people start at the collective level. Individual spark comes later. That is why so few of the relationships out there are cross-cultural, inter-racial, even in a diverse city like New York.

Online Dating Newsflash: Race And Religion Matter

Andrea Miller: Bio

.... founder and CEO of YourTango ..... a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School ..... positions with Goldman Sachs, ICF Consulting and Enron’s international finance team. While with Enron, Andrea was based in Mumbai, India for three years. ...... a frequent panelist and guest speaker in classes at Harvard University, Columbia University, Fordham University, The Wharton School and New York University. .... a licensed private pilot, and is a passionate karate practitioner ..... one of the original co-heads of the New York Chapter of 85 Broads, an independent global network of female professionals and students. She actively seeks to promote entrepreneurship among women; she is the co-founder of the Women Entrepreneurs Network, an active network of females who represent some of the tri-state area's most talented and promising young entrepreneurs.

Andrea Miller: How To Date An Indian

Indians are the true Chosen People .....There are obvious reasons one would want to date an Indian, such as how successful and professionally desirable they are. Indians dominate as engineers, doctors, lawyers, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. They make up a large proportion of our graduate students -- just walk around the campuses of Harvard, Columbia or Stanford or and you will see these incredibly attractive brown people all over the place....... Indian people tend to be really good looking. ..... According to Wikipedia*, "India holds the highest number of Miss World winners, only to be tied with Venezuela." ...... Most Indians are innately gracious, social creatures; they highly value friends and family and have a calendar filled with various holidays and occasions to celebrate, which they typically do with gusto. Those endless jubilant dance numbers in Bollywood movies pretty much channel the Indian soul. Moreover, Indian men love to dance. If for no other reason other than you want someone to dance with you (or without you for that matter), date an Indian. ....... learn seven things that should ingratiate you with them. The first five have to do with Bollywood. Indians take Bollywood and their celebrities very seriously. ....... If you bust out something like, "Yea, I loved Kuch Kuch Hota Hai," you are very likely to get a second date. .... Major bonus points if you suggest seeing a Hindi movie together. ...... Bhangra ...exhibit the right dance moves, i.e. patting an imaginary dog while screwing in an imaginary light bulb. ..... Indians love their food. Probably more than they love dancing. ...... Indians love when you speak their language. ..... there are several iPhone apps that will give you translations .... I hope Laxmi, Goddess of Prosperity, smiles on you as you endeavor to date one of her people. ..... one more big bonus when it comes to dating an Indian: communication with cabbies. Think I'm kidding? New Yorkers: Just imagine if you could stop a taxi during the 4pm transition time and your date could say, in Hindi, "Hey brother, will you please take us to Spring and 6th?"

Okay, so this blog post is not what I thought it might be. I came here hoping to get all defensive. But this is quite a flattering piece, and, I must say, hilarious to boot. This post is as entertaining as a Bollywood masala movie. The blogger's description of Bhangra is the most hilarious I have ever seen: "Bhangra ...exhibit the right dance moves, i.e. patting an imaginary dog while screwing in an imaginary light bulb."

The post is funny but she is curiously right in some ways. I guess it takes an outsider to get you some perspective. Bollywood movies were stuff you did not watch too much of when I was growing up: good students watched movies only moderately. I came to America and the Bollywood movies became my culture.

She is to the point about food. During my road trip across America I realized I missed Desi food more than my family.

"I hope Laxmi, Goddess of Prosperity, smiles on you as you endeavor to date one of her people." Hilarious. A college friend once said to me, it was a green card, gold card swap.

That cabbie part. I never thought that was an advantage. I mean, I am very much a subway person. But when you talk to a brown person, you might as well talk Hindi. They appreciate it. White guys similarly have advantages on Capitol Hill and Wall Street. Although I am not so sure about Wall Street. Goldman Sachs is one third brown. And we are about to send Reshma to DC, so we will be good there too.

Reshma 2010, Square, And Pro.Act.Ly

Okay, so this picture is me right out of high school. You can see I was trying hard to imitate Amitabh Bachchan's hairstyle. If you don't know who that is, you are an illiterate. He just so happens to be the most recognized face on the planet. You don't have to date an Indian to know that.



There is Hindi, and there is English. There is Bollywood, and there is Hollywood. There is democracy, and there is democracy. We are breaking even. I am all for cross-cultural understanding. Peace and love.

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The PayCheckr Promise

Allan Hoving showed up in the comments section of this blog post: New York Times, Don't Die, Live. Maintaining my good blogger practices, I replied to his comment. We moved from the comments sections to email to the phone to a three way with someone on his team. Some of his demo round people who had gone to sleep came back from the dead.

I have ended up with an arrangement with PayCheckr that leaves plenty of room for my primary startup, and my three active blogs. There is the promise of creating major value with the button, but then there are also the learning opportunities.

Allan took me to a media conference along the L line near the Apple store. The famed NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen was the star attraction. I got up to ask a question.

Image via CrunchBase

The team has been telecommuting for the most part. Skype works great for conference calls. And of course there are meetings, with investors, potential partners. Allan is a big picture person. He is the visionary type.

I think PayCheckr is after something big. News, if anything, is more important than ever before. News is not dying, it is thriving like never before. But newspapers are dropping like flies. The blogosphere is expanding like the universe after the Big Bang. Somewhere in there is big money for publishers small and large. That is what PayCheckr is betting on. Money is going to be made.

Image via Wikipedia

PayCheckr is a good thing for me to get involved in on the side. I have three active blogs and two startups. My involvement with PayCheckr is good for my own startup: JyotiConnect Inc..

What we have out there is PayCheckr demo. We are working on PayCheckr 1.0. I am hoping PayCheckr 3.0 is a button that an entity like the New York Times would want to put on its site.

What could be PayCheckr's exit strategy? One would be to get the button on 10 million

Image via CrunchBase

blogs and sell it off for 10 million dollars. But then the MySpace guys sold MySpace for $500 million and Rupert Murdoch, in weeks, turned around and got Google to pay him $900 million to be allowed to serve ads on the MySpace property. Why did not the founders cut that deal?

Steve Outing: PayCheckr: the ‘ShareThis’ for donation, pay options

As author of this blog, I’d love to have lots of options for readers to send a few cents (or dollars!) my way if they like my writing or find value in it. But this blog could easily get overwhelmed with donation graphics from all the different services! ........ I’ve been looking for the solution, which is an obvious one: a ShareThis-like widget that aggregates all the solutions for payment and/or donation. The first such solution appears to be PayCheckr........ I’ve been looking for someone to come up with something like this, and PayCheckr founder Allan Hoving appears to be the first. Somehow he evaded my radar, since minOnline gave the fledgling service a write-up in late July.

Steve Smith: PayCheckr: Let ’Em Pay! Any Way They Like

“We have customized everything else [online], why not let us choose how to pay for it?” Hoving says. ...... the button is designed to aggregate the monetization opportunities a site already uses and let the visitor decide how they want to

Image via CrunchBase

remunerate the owner. ....... “We may be the delightful, easy-to-use interface between the publisher and the reader,” Hoving says. “We make the introduction and then get out of the way. Another way is to get more involved in transactions and perhaps fulfillments.” ....... At the very least, PayCheckr could be a clearinghouse and analytics engine for monetization opportunities. ...... Hoving has worked in a variety of magazine positions over the years at New York, Rolling Stone and Thomson Financial.

Netizen is the very first blog that put the PayCheckr button on. Let that be noted. History got made.

PayCheckr - Keeping what's read in the black
PayCheckr.com (PayCheckr) on Twitter
PayCheckr
Netizen: PayCheckr Potential
Netizen: PayCheckr: Bringing Money Into Blogging?
PayCheckr: Let 'Em Pay! Any Way They Like :: MinOnline
#hashtags - paycheckr
PayCheckr: Let Em Pay! Any Way They Like :: MinOnline
Twitter / PayCheckr.com: @Mediabistro @NiemanLab @T ...
paycheckr.com - Steve Outing - FriendFeed
USER-CENTRIC ONLINE REVENUE MODEL (pat. pend.) « PayCheckr
PayCheckr: This content is sponsored by PayCheckr.com
Allan Hoving - FriendFeed
Yes, News Sites Are Facing A Crisis, But Aggregators Aren't The ...
Mark Cuban Is a Big Fat Idiot—News Will Stay Free
Flickr: ahoving's Photostream
The death of snail mail & Sunday papers « BuzzMachine
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digiday:DAILY - FT Editor Finds "Inexorable" Revenue Model
Raise Your Hand If You Think Media People Have a Future

The PayCheckr button is a piece of real estate that will increase in value as online publishing steps up to the plate, and as the button itself morphs and makes itself valuable and easy to use for publishers and bloggers in general. The challenge is to benefit from the first mover advantage but also spring forth the muscle and finesse of latecomers. It is going to be a wild ride, that's for sure.

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NY Tech MeetUp: Gravitas

September 2009 NY Tech MeetUp

The September 2009 NY Tech MeetUp was really something. You had some NYU and Columbia folks demonstrate some cutting edge stuff - taking image and video search to a whole new level - and you had the inventor of the spreadsheet show up: Dan Bricklin.

Image via Wikipedia

Dan was introduced by Anil Dash. Anil is a Desi like me. He has been blogging for 10 years now. He started blogging when the word blog did not exist yet, and is friends with the guy who coined the term: blog.

I shared a small anxiety with Anil: [WordPress #336657]: Not Being Able To Leave Comments.

Anil Dash On Google Wave

I showed up half an hour early and saw the point in showing up early. I bumped into Mark Peter Davis on the way up. We briefly chatted about our mutual friend Adam Carson. Adam and I met first through the NYTM mailing list.

As I walked into the hall, Nate Westheimer walked up and out.

"Is there an early bird special?" I teased him. He laughed.

Showing up early meant I got to chit chat with Anil Dash, then Dan Bricklin, and Bricklin's son in law who I sat next to the entire show.

Nate: Why Tomorrow Night's NYTM Is So Important

I lingered afterwards until they kicked us out. Then I got to hang out with two members from ScienceHouse on the sidewalk. Gabi was officially the last person to vacate the premises an

Image via Wikipedia

d has a picture to prove it.

I guess they did not announce a bar for the after party for this one. Usually they do.

It was a relief to experience a long presentation by Bricklin. Usually the demo people get five minutes. Next you know Nate is breathing down your neck. I guess that is how he creates spots for many presenters.

Towards the end I met a Desi, a Pakistani, who had moved from Dubai only a week or so ago: Adnan Rafik. He claimed to have visited my blog. He recognized me from my picture. "Robert De Niro has only one of these!" It helped that I left a comment on the NYTM page of MeetUp that had my blog's web address.

If you have a startup, you likely have a small team. You need to show up once a month for the tech meetup to imbibe the energy of the hundreds in attendance.

I had the honor of asking the first question to Bricklin. MeetUp CEO, Founder Scott asked the second. This was my first question ever at a tech meetup. It helped that I had got to know Anil right before the show started. He spotted me and handed me the mic.

"With HTML 5 and beyond, do you think the online spreadsheets will end up with much richer functionalities and features than the desktop versions?"

He said they already have. People get to collaborate online. Many people can be working on the same spreadsheet.

"Hi, I am Paramendra with JyotiConnect Incorporated," I began.

For me personally the most touching part of Bricklin's presentation was when someone from the audience asked him if because of the One Laptop Per Child people are getting smarter everywhere.

"People are smart everywhere before the laptop," he said. "They are human." This was the utter, matter of fact non-racism of an extraordinary mind.

Before the show began, and I positioned myself behind Anil's seat and did not realize I was sitting only two seats from Bricklin - at one point I was about to ask him, excuse me, but are you someone famous - and I got into small talk with Bricklin and realized here was a guy who knew Bill Gates and Bill Gates knew before Bill Gates became Bill Gates.

"What was he like?" I asked.

"Oh. He was and is the same guy you see on Charlie Rose," he said.

I found the answer so very disarming. Bill Gates is just human.

http://twitter.com/paramendra/status/3718180749
http://twitter.com/DanB/status/3719386089
http://twitter.com/DanB/status/3718554278

Dan Bricklin CNet Video

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September 2009 NY Tech MeetUp

A special talk by Dan Bricklin, co-inventor of the spreadsheet, followed by an interview with web luminary Anil Dash.

Demos of mind-blowing tech developed at our local universities:

- GreenDot (computer vision tech developed at NYU)
- CuZero (advanced video search developed at Columbia)
- Musically Intelligent Machines (developed at Columbia)
- "Teaching Robots to See" (technology developed at NYU)

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NYTM 03/09/09: Fashion Institute of Technology

FIT - Haft Auditorium

27th St & 7th Ave
btw 7th & 8th Ave
New York, NY 10001

March 9, 2009

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- and Prof. Panos Ipeirotis from NYU talking about the EconoMining project.

http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/messages/boards/thread/6233383/


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This was a new venue for the New York Tech MeetUp. The Diller building was razzmatazz. But this was a bigger venue, a better location, and nobody was pushing you out of the building as soon as the show was over. I paid cash so I had to wait. They did let me in right before the beginning, after having processed all those who paid online.

The presentations were great. The stage was great. Nate did a great job of hosting. Although I think he should say no to all announcement requests like Scott had decided to. Later I told him one one one, Nate, you are a public figure, one of the most important skills you will learn is to say no. He said, but if I were to say no to you you'd think I am a dick. I said you already said no to me, and I respected you for that. That was in reference to a funding advice I sought from him over email.



The presentations were great, but the mingling right after was greater, and the after party after that was the greatest. Thanks Alicia for buying me a drink, and thanks for the tip to go to the Sloan group on LinkedIn to try and get a MBA person. I shot out a few quick emails once back home.

Oh, hi there Stan.

I went from booth to booth afterwards and did the tech version of nice pin, nice tie. Met the guy who organized the Shorty Awards. That is for Twitter, for those of you who don't know. They just did the first one, now they will do it every year.

Most presentations tend to be dot coms seeking to add value in the online space. Some are going for ads, others are seeking to charge users for use. There were some remarkable applications on show.

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- and Prof. Panos Ipeirotis from NYU talking about the EconoMining project.