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Semantic Web Austin

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on June 20, 2008

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I had no idea there were so many people in Austin who know so much about the Semantic Web. Even more, I had no idea we had several stealth companies working on a semantic offering.

Here are some pic Michelle Greer took of the Semantic Web Austin Launch Party last week. Lynn Bender and Geek Austin kick ass for helping put this on. The SWA (is that the official acronym?) is lead by Texas Ph D student and Semantic Web Evanglist, Juan Sequeda, and John De Olivera, Executive Director of the Cyc Foundation.

Quick note about the Cyc Foundation. From their website, this what what they do:

The Cyc Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the enrichment and utilization of the open source portions of the Cyc knowledge base—the world’s largest repository of machine-readable, common-sense knowledge. In this role, we will work with others to expand these resources, educate developers and increase general awareness of the potential applications of the technology.

From Wikipedia, about Cyc:

Cyc is an artificial intelligence project that attempts to assemble a comprehensive ontology and database of everyday common sense knowledge, with the goal of enabling AI applications to perform human-like reasoning.

As we move completely away from web2-0. We’re really lucky to have the Cyc Foundation and Cycorp with their 20+ years of gov funded research here in Austin.

Firefox set a world record that day with 8 million downloads.

How much do you know about the Semantic Web : How much do you contribute to the web.

Full house. Looks like Troy is doing a double take of something.

Juan and JohnDeo open up the event.

Troy Williams, founder of PeoplePad and formerly Questia talked about what the semantic web is to him, how he sees it, how it will be useful, etc. Was a great opener as the night slowly got more technical.

Cesar Torres and Dusty Reagan of Conjunctured on the outside.

Dewey Gaedcke of Founder of Minggl in skyblue

Lot of Proffs and researchers who asked high level questions.

@Garyvee, ruler of his context, live in Austin

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on June 5, 2008

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Tuesday I was part of the crowd that met Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV at the beautiful and always local, Grapevine Market. People in attendance that I can recall includ Cesar Torres (he has a great write up btw), Damon Clinkscales, imDane, Kristine Gloria (the one with teh smile above) Tim Walker (also with a great LONG writeup), Robert E Taylor, RichardatDELL, Michelle Greer, Kevin Koym…

I absolutly love seeing Gary and listening to him talk. Wine is slightly interesting to me because it is a big part of the Sicilian side of my family, specifically with my grandpa :). Gary is uber connected with the tech scene so he always has good insight and predictions there, which is interesting. But what I love the most about this guy is his excitement for life. He’s an inspiration to anyone who wants to be themselves and make it. He was talking about how much he loves being able to be behind the table and chat with everyone. How that makes him feel like a cat. A cat being pet and raising his butt. hhah It was like we were all just petting him.

It’s all about breaking down the situation. Eliminating the barriers between the guy behind the table and your audience. Gary did this by talking about the situation. Discussing what was going on. How it felt to him and how it must feel to us. To me, you know someone understands and can control their context when they are able to make jokes about it. Jokes that everyone gets because they have all bought in to the environment. I think everybody loves when people can do that - same feeling I get when people make puns. Very clever, very aware. end rant(rave).

I took some video with my phone from the event, but once I got it on my computer and looked at it in comparison to Dane’s I scraped it. SO, here is

“Gary Vaynerchuk’s Austin Lightning Hour”

Orlando Rincón Bonilla - ParqueSoft - hero?

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on May 30, 2008

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As much as I preach empathy and sharing of yourself - I believe the more you share, the more opportunuitys you provide others to see themselves in you and thus say, “hey, if s/he can do it, so can I.” - I’ve never been able to say “that person is my hero.” So, I’m not saying this guy is my hero just yet because I’ve never met him, but based on who ever wrote this wikipedia article, Orlando Rincón is a helluva guy. I love his commitment to country, the power entrepreneurship, youth, and technology.

Here are some excerpts that really motivated me.

Orlando Rincón Bonilla is a firm believer in the creative capacity and commitment of his compatriots.

In 1984, he founded Open Systems Ltd, which became one of the leading examples of Colombia’s emerging Software industry. As head of the company, he accumulated a wealth of experience and knowledge on running and managing a software company. But he was troubled by the tension between profit maximization and the importance of social development, which remained of paramount importance to him. He realized he had to foster entrepreneurs with a different mindset that would understand that markets could provide a way to achieve equity and justice, and decided to pursue that vision. Bonilla sold all of his stock in Open Systems and founded ParqueSoft in 1999 as a non-profit enterprise.

…he visited several Asian and European countries that were being touted as “economic miracles” thanks to their ability to create a niche in the Information Technology industry. He observed with disappointment that behind that miracle were managers—not self-starting entrepreneurs—who had been hired by global companies located in Los Angeles or London, justifying the low wages paid by reasoning that the workers were earning much more than they would if contracted by a local company. That was not good enough for Bonilla.

ParqueSoft is fundamentally focused on creating social value, not software companies. Its mission is to stimulate democracy and justice through the inclusion of previously marginalized young people living in low-income communities. ParqueSoft seeks to transform them into protagonists of their enterprises, not employees.

To foster an entrepreneurial culture, ParqueSoft has a programme whereby every two months it integrates 150 young people for 8 weeks into the different enterprises according to their interests. The youth participate in the activities of the enterprise and learn what it is like to be wrapped up in the world of technology and science from a venture perspective. The objective is to teach these young participants about technology and business, and help them to envisage themselves as agents of change rather than as future employees.

A while back I started putting together a list of billionaires that are worth something. I need to revisit that list.

Juan, thanks so much for your email about ParqueSoft. You rock dude; and you were right on that I would dig all this.

Meeting with great people in Austin

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on May 29, 2008

in Austin, General and startup district

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Almost everyone I met with today was somehow interested in the Semantic Web. What’s the deal? Is Austin really that much of a hot bed for this?

My first meeting was with Juan Sequeda. Juan is a Semantic Web Evangelist, Entrepreneur and Web Developer - he’s also working on his Ph.D at UT. He gave me the run down on how Parquesoft operates in Columbia. In Juan’s words here’s a run down of what they do, you’ll see how it’s applicable to Conjunctured/Startup District (I hope you don’t mind me posting this :):

The creator of parquesoft was a millionare software developer who decided to buy a huge warehouse and convert it into tons of small offices. Any student/ developer who had an idea, could apply for a space, and if the idea was unique enough, you would get a space, free internet and everything for just 25 dolars a month. The company was on its own, but if they needed help because of a huge contract and they needed lawyers or something, Parquesoft would help them [for a percentage of the take]. The deal is that this place has extended to several other cities in Colombia and is doing the same. Any entrepreneur who has an idea, can get a space and work. The idea of Parquesoft is also to do a social impact (Colombia is a developing country).

It just so happened that Cesar was meeting with Clay Spinuzzi in the same coffee shop - I love when that happens.

Next, thanks to Melissa’s introduction, I met Timothy Maxwell. Tim is a Developer/Consultant at Optaros. He was especially interested in the kind of business model ideas we talked about originally for Conjunctured (ie the “Co-company” model) and what kind of software could be developed to facilitate such a structure. I’m going to connect Tim with John De Oliveira and ActionItem.com.

After this I had a great lunch at Chez Nous with Jonas Lamis (the food was good, but the conversation was better - I need to revisit Chez Nous and think about what I’m eating, not just talk). Jonas is into stuff I think is so cool. He’s the founder of SciVestor, a “research and advisory firm focused on coming waves of disruptive technologies. [They do] Research and events for business and investment communities covering Life Extension, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Nanotechnology marketplaces.”

It was great getting to know Jonas (it always weird writing about someone when you know they will probably read it soon). I’m looking forward to continuing our conversations. I want to ask more about AI, Singularity, etc. But I think there are a couple videos and blog posts I need to watch/read beforehand. We talked mostly about the Startup District and after lunch went and drove around the East Side to scope out warehouses.

Finally went to the Long Center and volunteered with the American Cancer Society - @daveiam, Tom, and I were there talking to people about SharingHope.tv - it’s a great social site for cancer survivors and others to share their stories. ACS and the HBMG Foundation are sponsoring the showing of The Love Sonatas there.

At the Long Center I ran into David Smith, CEO of HBMG and formally of Technology Futures Inc, and Lyn Graft who Founded the Club E Network - both guys I enjoy talking to.

Back at home I jogged to Marcus Ceniceros‘ place and had a long conversation about the University of Texas and it’s place in the State of Texas, how Austin politics work (i learned a ton), the Startup District, how to effectively rally people, and about managing relationships for the long term. Marcus will be teaching in Houston for 2years via Teach for America. Soon we will all be voting this guy into office. And even sooner he’ll be improving our educational policy.

More fun in Austin

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on May 28, 2008

in Austin and General

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Recap of a great Memorial Day weekend

Went on a 2 hour bike ride with Jon and Will - rode our bikes from the UT campus to the greenbelt at 360

Danced up a storm, jumped in Barton Springs at 4am-ish with @cesart, @jon100, @rockgirl, @gloriakt, @imdane SEE DANE’S FLICKR
Startup Drinks at Cork and Co was great - excellent conversation all around, most notably with @jdhouse4, Rajat, and @damon
Rode down 2222 from Mount Bonnell on bikes+flaming torches with Will Roman (the photos below i stole from Will’s flickr stream - thanks man)
Went cliff diving with a ton of Twitters SEE KRISTINE’S POST
Cliff Jumping, Austin from Kristine Gloria on Vimeo.

How much has money contributed to your happiness? - Dusty Reagan

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on April 29, 2008

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In December I asked my Linkedin friends a question. It was a time when I really needed to hear inspiring words. I needed to feel comfortable with my decisions. I received so many great responses (35 total), I want to share them with you. I’m going to start throwing them out here - assuming I get permission from the respondents.

One of the first to reply was my good buddy (and perhaps yours too) Dusty Reagan. …Let’s begin:

My question

How much has money contributed to your happiness?

I’m curious because, as a soon-to-be college graduate turning full time entrepreneur, I feel like I have several options. Do I go for the money now so I can follow my passions later. Do I follow passion now and hope that money follows. Is money even going to make me happy…

I’ve heard two things: “Money does not make happiness” and “Money is not happiness, but money is freedom and freedom is happiness.” ??

Dusty

Personally, I consider capitalism like a video game. There are a set of rules you must play the game by, there are weaknesses in the system you can exploit, and you generally have to practice to beat the difficult parts.

For me money doesn’t necessarily equate to happiness, but (like collecting wood, gold, and ore in an RTS) it’s a resources I must have to sustain and grow my venture. If I have an abundance of resources to grow my venture, I coincidentally, find myself happy.

You should always follow your dreams. That will make you happy. It won’t necessarily make you money though. And you usually need money to follow your dreams. This conundrum is the game we’re all playing. But, as long as you have enough money to feed yourself, your family, and your business, you can keep playing the game. If you run out of cash you’ll be forced to find a new racket.

The long and short of my advice is you *must* have cash flow. How you obtain it is part of the game. One other piece of advice, there’s never a “good-time” to set out on your own venture. It will always be risky, it will always be hard, and there will always be nay-sayers in your life. You just have to do it.

//

I encourage you to ask questions on Linkedin. I promise you will get some great answerers. Ones that resonate with you, like Dusty’s did for me. Thanks dooder!

Startup Bar Hunt open alpha 0.20

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on April 13, 2008

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We did it! Teh Startup Bar Hunt has begun. 11 total were in attendence - and get this - 6 girls, 5 guys! WOWOW best time evva.

View Larger Map

In short - Betsy’s Bar was cool, dark, red, had a radar.net stick in the bathroom. Firehouse Lounge was nice and fun. Spill was awesome for dancing! Go team. Black and Tan/Orchid was pretty killer - robots hanging from the ceiling, good music, good lights, cool owner. (What was the bar Dusty went to?) Beauty Bar was fun for looking at scenesters (+ lesbians). THAI PASSION + Mmmm. END.

conjunctured, openID, semantics — all the stuff I love

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on April 11, 2008

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Great day today.

Worked at Austin Java on Lamar with the guys and got the start of a new Conjunctured website mostly figured out. Along with some financial details and goals — which btw are to actively pursue new clients and have our coworking space — uh, asap. We’re looking for a space (downtown or the east side) and people who are down to work in it. We are totally pimping the model of our peeps Indy Hall and New Work City.

Got to have a brilliant conversation with my old Digital Identities professor, Christoph Engamann, about Austin, Conjunctured, innovation, openID vs M$ cardspace, startup communities, and the furtue of identity. WOW. This was important because I talked with Dick Hardt this week about managing the creation of/developing a plan for openID’s core messaging platform. - I couldn’t be more excited about this! This really deserves it’s own post soon. What does openID mean to you? It’s “the ID you own,” says Christoph.

After this, I rode with Eric to CycCorp headquarters for a meetup arranged by JohnDeO. There, I saw a demo of a semantic firefox plugin - honestly i didnt understand it. Michael Bergman, CEO of Zitgist LLC, gave a demo of Umbel - which is “A lightweight, subject concept reference structure for the Web” - I was blown away and that’s just scratching the surface of what Cyc can do.

There really is a large semantics community in Austin, I’m trying to get everyone together - if you’re in Austin and remotely interested in the semantic web (web 3.0), send me an email - this is a great group that will blow your mind.

Steve Reed gave a short presentation on his “open source project to create an artificial intelligence.” JohnDeO is one of the smartest guys I know. Tonight he said Steve was the smartest guy he knows…. What he is working on it will change the world.

When I got home I had an invite to Nova Spivack’s twine waiting for me - Thank you. ~5000 people on twine. Not really sure what i’m supposed to do. Share stuff in a place where none of my friends are? Nice tags though ??

The overall theme for today was a term JohnDeO uses often: Intelligence Amplification. It’s “AI” flipped to IA - it’s a great descriptor for what the semantic web and openID can do for us.

Facebook. Singles ads are outta control.

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on March 30, 2008

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I love you Facebook. But, really? Is this how you’re making dat money?

Continue reading ‘Facebook. Singles ads are outta control.’

Recalling SXSW - Day 2

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on March 26, 2008

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I had to do some work in the morning. Didn’t get out of the house until like 2pm.

Cesar, Matt and I went to Whole Foods for lunch with the notanmba guys and Eric from ShootTheBaby.com - his site is about how to shoot great baby pics, though, I’ve been watching the videos to laugh and learn more about photography. Eric has a great sense of humor - the videos crack me up. Then we walked to GSD&M’s Idea City where Bar Camp was being held. Went to a panel on coworking led by Julie and Alex.

Afterwards I met Joyce Bettencourt who was filming the coworking session with her N95. Joyce was really nice and fun to talk to. She works, I believe, primarily at a nonprofit in New York. She is a blogger and virtural words disgner – very cool.

We went downstairs and Joyce introduced me to Gwen Bell. I told her briefly about Conjunctured and she told me a bit about TechStars, Socialthing! and Startup Weekend. Gwen has beautiful glossy business cards which I proceeded to ~~write~~ scratch notes on as we talked - she winced a little and ask me if I wanted paper. I declined.

From here we headed straight to the google party at light bar. Out front we saw Mark Mims. We met Jon there and where able to walk right in. Thank goodness to, the line was around the block.

There I met John from ActionItem.com and Cycfoundation. He is from Austin! I was stoked. John does some work with semantics – excited to get some people together for a meeting about this.

From here we all headed to the Frog Design party. Dusty and I beat everyone there because we took a petty cab! Outside I met The Ice Cream Man and he told me about his idea to give away free ice cream for like 6 years. He said “I came to a point in my life when I realized I can do anything I want. So I decided I wanted to be THE ice cream man.” Pretty sweeet! What can I say, I love the guy.

The party was held at the Mexican American cultural center – it’s a beautiful place. There were fire dancers, tons of people all dressed up, live music, and other shows and stuff. Jon and I walked up stairs to find an extremely long drink line – wait for a drink was like an 45mins to an hour. I don’t care if it’s free, that’s just stupid long. I went to the bathroom and came out to find Jon talking with some girls in line. Turns out there where from Texas – 2 from Austin, 1 from Denton. To be continued…

“Coworking. Accelerating Serendipity.”

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on March 24, 2008

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At sometime during south-by I sent an email to myself with that as the subject. Any idea who said it? I feel like it was Alex from Indy Hall.

Well, whoever it was. I love it.

Here is some info on Coworking. And a link to our company: Conjunctured - A Coworking Company. AND, better yet, the Co-Company Google Group </self-promotion>

Recalling SXSWi - Day 1 (Evening)

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on March 17, 2008

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At the Coworking meetup. I think I talked to Julie Gomel of Launch Pad Coworking first (new space going in downtown austin!). Talked to her for a long time. She is such a lovable lady. And a bad ass business women. Damn! Then to some of her business partners and to Murry Legg the architect for Launch Pad.

I got myself in a little circle of non Austin people. Alex from Indy Hall was the first person I talked to. Then Patrick. Then Geoff the other owner of Indy Hall.

Then! I met the creator of scriptaculous and Amy Hoy. That was pretty killer. I talked to Amy for a long time about random stuff. I saw her again later on at garyvee’s spontaneous wine party but she like didn’t remember what we talked about. Apparently she was drunker that I perceived. I think she was supposed to email me something.. I remember her putting it in her phone.

I also saw Christy Cox there – miss that girl – she was just there at the hotel hangin out, not apart of the coworking crew. Random, but great.

As the party drew to a close everyone began heading to SIX where the official SXSWi opening party was.

I heard on twitter that everyone was on the rooftop, so that’s where we headed. Sure enough everyone was swarming Kevin Rose, well, and the heaters over by him.

That was a great night for meeting people. The first person I met was Kyle from Justin.tv – I was standing by myself kind of in a corner because the crown was as pushy as a rock concert – he was like what’s up man, why u by yourself. We talked about what he did, how he got involved with Justin.tv – evidently he’s an MIT dropout and doesn’t plan to go back. To me, Kyle was the epitome of the young tech crowd. He came and talked to me. Told me tons of stuff about the people around us. Told me his story. Listened to what I had to say. Told me to come to the valley and hang out. Then gave me some drink passes. Hah. I mean. I freekin love internet people!

From there I met Daniel Burka, I had not idea who he was I just gave him a high5 and said what’s up. Again, he was totally nice. Talked to him for a while about Pownce and Digg, I had no idea he was involved in them. Great dude. He introduced me to Jim Louderback (dude, Jim why is your site done in frontpage – is that a joke?) whom I recognized but not as the CEO of Revision3. I actually didn’t remember at the time what Revision3 was even though I had watched Diggnation a couple times on there. Talk to him for prob 15mins about revision3, radar.net, why I didn’t know what revision3 was, video compression, great guy! Only after he left did I get clarification from Burka on why I recognized him – Fresh Grear – a show on TechTV I used to watch in high school with my dad like everyday.

I know I talked to more people over in this group but I didn’t get their card so I really can’t remember.

Over on the other side of the heater was Shawn O’Connor of Timepedia.org – we talked about Radar and about Conjunctured. He offered some great advice on getting things done and not trying to get a good office space to get work done. Just work on that a little at a time. Think about what your ultimate end goal is. It’s to have created something, right?, not to have an office. He was saying how people get to caught up in that. I kinda felt like he was challenging everything I was talking about. Never the less his advice was sound. And he was one of the only people I met at the conference who knew what radar.net was and about the guys at Tiny Pictures. So that was nice.

After Shawn I met a couple girls from Yahoo! We talked about how cool Austin was and how I was not from the valley. Elsa Kawai was one of them.

Next person was Srini Kumar CEO of Metanotes and lots of other stuff – the guy is so full of energy. He was great to talk to. Told me all about metanote and all the cool ajax jazz they have rockin behind it. They later won a SXSW web award.

Around then was Austin’s closing time 2am and we all went home.

Recalling SXSWi - Day 1

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on March 17, 2008

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Had a bagel & banana for breakfast at Jo’s at 7am with Todd, Cesar, and Jon….Cesar and I got our badges. Went down stairs, saw iJustine and took a pic with her. She had to pee so we let her go.

ijustine

(dang I’m excited - smiling so big my gums show, I hate when I do that)

In the conference center we stopped to play with legos for a sec and John Poisson (tiny pictures/radar.net founder) popped up. We were both rockin the radar hoodie - I actually wore more the whole week. I really miss talking to the radar peeps. John knows his shit. We went out a few days later and had a great convo. btw if you want a similar radar t-shirt just email em

Went to lunch at Las Manitas for the tweetup. There I met the Maestro of Utterz, Simeon Margolis (I had no idea he was a co-founder until just now). Tony Katz and his business partner-cant remember his name. Met orchid8 for the first time – twitter friend. Started seeing people with their N95s. Austin funny man/tech geek Omar was there - loved running in to him all week and laughing to his commentary on twitter. Talked with Simeon for quite a while about promoting to the youth market - really was a great conversation, he was very interested, listened well, and was totally humble. Gonna have to talk with that guy again. Met David – twitter friend who is at UT. Started following laughingsquid – turns out there were always at the same places as us but we had no idea what the guy looked like. Connie Reese and palls were there. Also, somewhere in between @Davidhwalker came and gave Cesar and I our new Conjunctured business cards. Damn, they are hot.

conjunctured business cards

Went to a panel on how to Rawk Southby. It kinda sucked. Afterwards we went to the stage and I gave Matt Mullenweg a high-five for creating wordpress. We talked to him about growing up in Houston, etc. Was a very nice guy. Cesar and I took a photo with him.

Matt Mullenweg

Oh man, we met the icanhascheezburger guys – they are so freekin cool! We talked to them about coworking for a while and them opening a space in Hawaii After that we went and waited for a bit for Tim Ferriss. He got done but needed to go get something or someone. So he proceeded to put down his stuff and run off. In the mean time I got kissed on the cheek by a toasty MJ (some girl who is supposedly internet famous. Never heard of her, but she was real drunk all week).

mj girl

Tim came back as we talked outside the auditorium for like 30 mins. He had sent a tweet earlier about how grackles were whooping like meth addicts at 3am. And that he wanted a shotgut. Evidently he was staying down town where there was a large collection of those foul birds.

When Tim left he put on his backpack and orange jacket and did a little jump kick maneuver. Then ran off. He just looks like a highly tuned machine.

Went to Champions by the convention center with Cesar and Kara Soluri – really happy about meeting Kara. Thom Singer, Ash, and Eric showed up for a while too. Champions is lame btw. But we knew that.

Kara left and Cesar and I went to his car and drove to the Coworking meetup at the hotel san jose. There were a ton of people there I wanted to meet, and I did. …to be continued.

Recalling SXSWi - Day 0

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on March 17, 2008

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Went and had dinner with Drew and Todd from http://notanmba.com – they had just gotten in town. We were following their trip here on twitter so it was fun to then join in the story we (@Cesart and I) had been watching.

From there we went to the Continental Club and watch some crazy “psychedelic folk” band with a woman singer. I really enjoyed it. Was laughing a lot. After her came a Blues jam with Charlie Sexton. Evidently he is famous. No idea.

There was however a famous person in the room. Lance Armstrong and his posse were stage right watching the show. Some tall skinny white girl wearing flats was dancing dirty with him. No idea who he is dating. There were also some older men in his group who were dancing up a storm. And a guy or two who may have been his brother(s). They all seemed to get pretty wasted. Towards the end the girl and lance were all over each other. So yeah, they were more fun to watch than the band.

SXSW Interactive 2008

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on March 7, 2008

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And so it begins

Follow me on…

radar: johnerik | invite code: cheese
twitter: john_erik | http://twitter.com/john_erik
dodgeball: jmetcalf27@gmail.com

Seriously FireFox, a half gig?

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on December 24, 2007

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Dang, this seems high. I’m going to take someone’s advice and get Firefox 3.0beta2.

I was holding back because I figured my 8,000 plugins wouldn’t work anyway. …I’ll report back.

Goodbye Netvibes. Hello (again) Google Reader.

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on December 24, 2007

. 6 Comments

I love Netvibes. Their culture is great and their product is slick. I have been using the service since damn near the day it was released. I have everything setup, all my tabs just how I like ‘em… oh well. With some quick ‘porting of my OPML file I was ready to go — painless. Here is why I switched to Google Reader:

I no longer need to run Meebo in a Netvibes tab (thanks to AIM integration in Gmail).
I cannot view Netvibes on my mobile.
New social features in Reader are great (watch for more of these from big G).
All my geek friends use it.
The Trends feature is awesome.

Perhaps it’s just the fun of using a new tool, or maybe it’s the Reader’s likeness to Gmail and my compulsion to always bring my inbox to zero, but if I leave the tab open I’m finding myself having to scrolling through the “All Items” list just to bring it to zero again. This is tricky, Scoble alone has shared something like 60 items just today. How do you people deal with this?

Information addiction. eek