Glad to have him in Austin.  Welcome Travis.

QikCom is looking to  hire PHP developers asap (plus for interface design experience) and perhaps some Rails guys. Hit ‘em up if that sounds like you thing. Full time and contract. Travis@qikcom.com

What is QikCom? At first glance it’s Yammer (newsfeed/twitter for groups), and a little more. Two cools things: 1.) all security features are free (this is where Yammer is hoping to monetize) and 2.) add-ons can install on-top of the app — not sure how all this is going towork API-wise, but he’s definitely thinking.

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…this is me trying to blog more, hope you like it.

Bryan Solis and Nova Spivack - chatting with the Cerego guys about the Singularity Summit and the SciVestor Workshop

San Diego is such a great city. I’m excited to be here at the DEMO conference. Melissa and I registered tonight and ended up hanging out for much longer than we had originally planned. We just kept seeing great people! Particularly the guys from Cerego.

Combining cognitive science with the social and collaborative structure of the web, Cerego empowers people to learn faster, remember longer, and manage their knowledge.

They run http://iKnow.co.jp. I haven’t played around too much with the service, but from talking with Andrew, Eric, and Kirk, I’m sold. Looking forward to really checking it out — they have a quarter million users in Japan and are now starting to opening up to the english speaking world. Their demo is Tuesday, right before Nova’s panel.

More to come!

Posted by email from johnerik’s posterous

This Q&A was originally for KXAN when they covered Conjunctured last month. Some events and references have already past.

Q: What exactly is coworking? And can you tell me a little bit about its history?

A: Coworking is not a new concept; it’s essentially just people sitting next to each other and working. The new part is the community that’s built around that concept, and that using the word “coworking” suggests a feeling and an action.

Coworking as we now know it started in San Francisco about 4 years ago. Reaching critical mass around 2000, the number of independent workers (freelancers, web entrepreneurs) increased like crazy. Thus, more and more people were working alone -in their apartment or perhaps in coffee shops, but still alone.

Saying “I’m coworking” became a way for people to talk to each other at coffee shops. People such as Chris Messina, who co-founded Citizen Space in San Francisco, soon realized that a coffee shop or someone’s home was not going to cut it. And coworking spaces were born.

Q: How long have you been working towards this goal of creating a coworking space? When did you originally have the idea?

A: In Austin, the idea for a coworking came out of a “Jelly.” Jelly, a term coined by NYC coworker Amit Gupta in 2006, are weekly coworking sessions. Dusty Reagan (founder of Austin’s Jelly movement), David Walker, and Cesar Torres and I realized after a couple weeks of Jellying that this was something special, and that as independent business owners we could benefit from this type of environment everyday.

During SXSWi 2008 we solidified our decision to create a coworking space, as we were able to talk to so many other founders of coworking spaces.

Using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, we went about creating a list of people who liked the idea of having a coworking space in Austin. Over 200 people are on the list. From there, we asked those with the most serious interest to fill out a questionnaire. We asked question like: What part of town? How much would you want to pay? How soon do you need space? Do you want a permanent desk?

We’ve bootstrapped the coworking space from the very beginning. 50 people filled out this form. With that knowledge, we started the hunt for a space that would appeal to what our community told us they wanted. It turned out to be challenging, because there is such high demand for real estate on the East side right now. We knew if we were going to get a space we would need to have the ability act fast, meaning having the money to put down when we found the perfect location. 6 of the 50 stepped forward and paid our newly formed LLC 1-6 months of the future coworking space’s fees in advance, so that we would have the thousands of dollars necessary to make the deposit, first month’s rent, etc that is required when signing on a commercial lease.

Q: What are the unique benefits of a coworking space, both for individuals and the community at large?

A: There are obvious benefits from coworking, such as decreased cost of office space, opportunities for social interaction, and helping independent workers get out of their house and into a community.

A term that is getting around the coworking community, likely coined by Julie Gomoll of LaunchPad coworking, is accelerated serendipity. It’s about proximity. About critical mass. Coworking brings like-minded people together in a creative and tight-knit environment. All across the country, coworking spaces are beginning to be considered as incubators for startup companies and small businesses.

Q: Austin is obviously a hotbed of technology, but at the same time it seems like the landscape is changing, away from enterprise and chip companies, and towards developers, designers, and more consumer-oriented technologies and startups. Would you agree with the statement?

A: Absolutely. This change has been happening quietly on its own in Austin. I see the future of Conjunctured and my own long-term goals as embracing and extending this change. In fact, I think we are leading this change.

Q: Now that your space is more or less up and running, talk to me a little bit about the longer-terms goals and impacts.

A: My personal mission is to ensure that Austin is technologically progressive and competitive.

I foresee that the people who participate in Conjunctured will become leaders in the movement to change Austin into a progressive hub of technology, specifically with regards to developing web technologies such as cloud computing and the semantic web.

Unite

While amassing the support necessary to make Conjunctued happen, I realized there was a need to unite Austin’s tech community in more that just one way. Austin has several cutting edge startups. Startups that are working with leading edge technology or creating it themselves. Startups that are changing the way the world interacts with technology.

These companies thrive on being in the thick of it. Their success depends on it. They also need to be surrounded by other people who are taking a lead. Leadership breeds leadership.

It was as a result of conversations with the people at the helm of these startups that led to the idea that Austin could benefit from a Startup District. A physical district that exists within the city, a particular part of town where there is a concentration of startup companies. I have been in talks with the Economic Development Department of Austin and members of City Council regarding this.

In the mean time, we have been supporting local events, many of which are going to be held at Conjunctured, such as StartupCamp on August 2nd, led by Brandon Wiley, and an upcoming iPhone DevCamp, lead by Andrew Donoho.

Educate

Austin needs to know what’s going on in Austin. The Austinites I met at SXSW had no idea which startups were in Austin and what they were working on. They were only familiar with Silicon Valley startups because Silicon Valley has an online network of websites and blogs that disseminate news and information.

Having a stronger Austin presence at SXSW Interactive 2009 is big part of this initiative. I want the Austinites who attend SXSW to be armed with knowledge of Austin companies and what is going on in Austin.

Invest

This is not just about creating a fund.

This is about creating a culture that reinvest in the future. The ideal situation is, companies succeed (with funding or without) and then the people who profit from these companies reinvest in younger companies and people. This is the culture that has helped to keep the Silicon Valley flourishing.

I’m working to spread the message of what we are doing in Austin around the country. For early stage companies, web companies in particular, it’s not about the money. It’s about the community, it’s about connections, it’s about mentorship.

Q: I understand you have been out of Austin; what have you been up to?

A: Since the 13th, I’ve been visiting locales in NY and in Boston such as New Work City, Spark Space, NYC Resistor, and Y-Combinator, because these spaces have become such hotbeds for innovation - with dozens of companies formed and launched within the past couple of years. I want to have the best understanding possible of how communities have rallied together to foster a stronger environment and launchpad for these types of folks.

I’m learning as much as I can about what others are doing and what is working so I can bring the best of this knowledge back to Austin and we can integrate it into our scene. I’m visiting San Francisco in August.

Questions I’m answering include: what level and type of economic development have these concentrated communities spurred; how are coworking spaces laid out to best encourage collaboration, creativity, work and happiness; how does geographical location and proximity play a role; what types of funding sources (VC’s, Angels) surround these communities, and why; what are their tenants like in the coworking spaces, and what do they want.

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• Austin as the Next Web 2.0 Hub (video)

The night before I left I pinged Chris Messina. An hour after I got off the plane, I met up with Chris and Larry Halff of Ma.gnolia and recorded a podcast with them for Citizen Garden.  Here are the goods on the cast:

We’re joined by John Erik Metcalf for a discussion about identity inside and outside of walled gardens, EAUT, tribalism, the usability of OpenID, and recomposable identity.

Ready to listen? Click.

(Yes, we are releasing Episode 8 on 08-08-08!)

Visit Citizen Garden on Ma.gnolia

I’m now off to the Snaptalent/DISQUS party with Melissa.

Two weeks ago I had a very productive and highly entertaining trip to New York (if you don’t count delayed and canceled flights), but I didn’t blog about anything. gah! So, here’s a quick recap:

Started the trip hunging out with Tony Bacigalupo of New Work City (really cool site), an initiative he’s leading to open a coworking space in Manhattan, and some of his potential clientele — the guys from http://beyou.tv and others (btw tony, thanks for all your help and advice on Conjunctured– needless to say, it’s much easier to find and open a coworking space in Austin, versus Manhattan.) Melissa and I went to Whitney Hess’s birthday party and met @brettof Mashable, Tom Limongello creator of http://failwhale.com, @gruen, @mknell, and more. We had coffee (and juice) with Eric Friedman from Union Square Ventures and breakfast with Girish Gupta from RRE Ventures. We had drinks, took an urban hike, and shared a wonderfully forward-looking conversation with Futurist, Gary Golden. Ate a vegan meal with @bre, hacker and founder of NYC Resistor. Met with Scott and Alan from Google. And Christopher from Google who introduced us to 3 entrepreneurs from the Yale School of Music. Visited Cambridge. Ran through the rain and chatted Tommy Li, President of the Harvard Entrepreneur Society. Had homemade curry and rice with Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, and this session’s 60 founders, at Y Combinator — this is a all post of its own.

mknell, brett, gruen

Melissa and I diverged from meetings or work often and walked in central park, tried both PinkBerry and its copy, RedMango, spent a day in the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum and discussed life the universe and everything, ordered lots of smoothies and juice, laid on benches, went shopping. Successfully made seven trips to the Apple store at all times of the day. Successfully failed at getting Mel an iPwn.

Now, I’m in San Francisco — I’ll be blogging this trip. (and hopefully getting Mel an appl phone)

This is a media extra from Omar’s story: Instant co-workers - Austin telecommuters soon will have places to go when camaraderie of the office is missing — That appeared on the cover of the Austin Statesman’s Life & Arts section Sunday.

My friend and former Creativity professor (yes, that was a class for my advertising degree) Assaf Avni just joined Twitter [@assafavni]. I’m excited to be able to keep up with what he’s up to. So he will get the best out of Twitter, I wrote a him a list of things to do/watchout for. … here’s the list perhaps it will be helpful to yall too.

• twit messes up quite a bit. doesnt post, late post, no sms, no tracking, etc
• when you setup your mobile device, whether you follow anyone to your phone or not, you want to send “track assafavni” to twitter (40404). doing this will send you SMS notifications anytime someone says your name who you are not following, very handy, must do this (but beware sometimes when twitter is overloard it doesnt work and you will still miss messages)
• Summize is a great twitter search tool and you can use it to search for your username to see if anyone was talking to you that you missed
• setup Twitterfeed to autopost to twitter anytime you post to your blog
• install the facebook twitter app and allow it to sync your status
• search for people you think are cool and follow them then talk to them, really
• import your gmail contact list (click Find and Follow)
• get an unlimited text messaging plan
• update frequently, people really do care, even about minutia
• download Twhirl for desktop Twitter client
• if you post often to flicker from your mobile, setup Snaptweet
• now, go read Melissa Sconyers’ post on twitter to get the real details

Am I forgetting anything???

OneSpot, Radar Networks/Twine, PeoplePad, Friendfeed, those are some of their clients I can think off the top of my head. I know there are several in town.

After talking with Josh Dilworth a bit about the Startup District and Conjunctured he invited me to come chat with the whole office. It was great, they had ordered a ton of tacos that morning, everyone was giving me hi-fives and hugs and talking about startups, I was like what is this place!?! … the meeting went great, they are very very supportive - Josh especially has been helping me out a ton and I’m very grateful (thanks for sure dood).

Later that day I ran into two people who were talking about Porter Novelli and that’s when I decided, “geez, I’m gonna do a quick post on them.”

Update PN is hiring, here’s the skinny:

* 2-4 years work experience – marketing or PR
* Agency experience, at least 1 year
* Tech preferred, but could be consumer tech/Internet tech
* Web 2.0/social media awareness critical, experience a huge plus (blogger, etc.)
* Strong writing
* Strong press relations/ability to pitch
* Multi tasker, well organized
* Highly responsible
* Team player
* Quick to adjust, ramp up, learn, and very flexible in an always changing environment
* MUST be live in Austin, already here, or willing to get her FAST
* Need to start ASAP.

I can tell you, because they let me sit in on their Thursday Staff Meeting an hear the nuts and bolts, this is a talented, fun, excited, and clever team. I actually found myself thinking “wow, it would be fun to work here” and I never ever think that. Let me know if you fit the above and I’ll intro ya. cheers!

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. (i know, i know. there is porn on the wall. i didnt pick the room. it’s some back room at a big bar.)

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.

Why would I create a photo album (an album of my life) if you’re never gonna let me hold it.

I want to see my domain, not yours. http://think27.com << that’s me.

NOT:

… why do you force me to stare at this. YUCK

In case you’re not instantly grokking what I’m talking about. Let’s think about this. (and this is nothing new that people havn’t been saying for a lone time now) … all the actions you take on facebook - changes to your profile, friends you connect with, messages you send, people you break up with, all those little “stories,” as FB calls them, etc. those are reflections of your life. Shouldn’t YOU own the album?

When facebook first started, you know back years ago when I was in college, I would always think: you know, facebook should record all these changes we are making to our profiles and all the friends we are making and all the pictures we are uploading and let us print it all out in a book. back then FB was only for college students, and I was expecting to drop it when I graduated, I thought, “this would be killer as a yearbook because gawd knows I’m not gonna by a real year book that includes 20,000 people I dont know.” i even sent zuck a message about this. (if facebook had a way to search my sent messages I’d go find it, but I dont feel like pressing the next button that many times.) i still think this would be a cool idea. print it out. but no worries, i have more.

ok, here’s another reason why we should stop letting facebook own all our action, specifically our social ones:

sooner or later we are going to have, as Jonas Lamis of Scivestor has talked about, something like Google Agent. It’s going to better understand what we want done because it will know a ton about us. For instance, and this only scratches the surface (and I’m totally stealing this example), if my anniversary was coming the Agent would know and it would know who my girlfriend was and where I like to take her and what my schedule was like, etc, etc. I would just click and it would take care of all that for me - and perhaps offer a couple choices. The point is. This crazy Agent bot thing has to get to know me and that takes time and data. Right now the place that knows the most about me and has the most data is most definitely facebook and google and I would bet it’s the same for you. I dont want the Agent/bot thing to have to get the data from fb/google, I want it to get it from me.

Now, I’m not worried about facebook having all this information. kdfakhfph./ well, shit. i kind of am… … it’s just that there is no where else to go with it. i’m not going to be one of those people who doesn’t use facebook because all this, i dont want to miss out on all the fun and all the great things facebook lets me do, i just want an alternative or i want facebook to openup all this data. AND I WANT IT NOW.

I’m not sure if the standards are in place yet to handle all this kind of openness… but. …That’s a good question. Does anyone know? Could they just use Google’s Opensocial or Friend Connect stuff? Is the DataPortability workgroup there yet?

How would I propose we move forward with all this? we could start with:

1.) Opensource or openup Friendfeed

Friendfeed is great, People like Robert Scoble (Loving my Friendfeed) and Mike Arrington (damnit Friendfeed gets even more useful) talk on and on about it and says we won’t feel how great it is until we join the community, but whatever, it’s just yet anther site that wants me to tell it where I am online and wants to know all about me. And until they open it up, all I really get in return is the ability to participate in threads where Loic or Robert are also chatting. At least there is RSS, but still. I should own all that data. If I want to share it and chat around it, then we can use Disqus. … I think

(NOTE: USE YAHOO PIPES!! like Zach Klein does for his Universal Feed)

2.) Make it easier for people to buy vanity domains.

We need to get people to understand how important it is that they own their identity online. Right now most people (ahem, besides leet ones who use nearlyfreespeach) goto Godaddy because they saw a lame super bowl ad. Have you seen Godaddy.com? Have you registered a domain from there? The site and domain control interfaces suck. For regular people to start doing anything with domains, which is what they need to start owning their identity, there has to be a better registar. One that is simple and doesn’t talk about DNS and or blah or blah. Just make it simple.

3.) Help people track their actions even better online.

4.) I love how Tumblr shows you how use a custom domain name. We need more of this.

I think together these pack a nice 1-2-punch and have been working on rough plans on the side for how all this should/could be implemented.

When I’m not plugging away and connecting people to the Startup District, what I need to do is get more involved in the DataPortability group (props to Chris Saad) and the DiSo Project (props to Chris Messina). …If you think any of this is cool, you should too.

After seeing Gary Vaynerchuck last week Dane and I decided we were going to started video blogging… I haven’t started yet, but I have been watching Dane’s. His first post asks people what they are passionate about. I started writing a long comment and decided I’d just post it here and link to Dane. Here goes.

Passion

I love the language of enthusiasm. I live for it. For excitement. That’s really what attracts me to technology startups and the people involved in them.

Mission #1: Mercilessly beating and outsmarting life; forcing it to bend into the reality I choose.

How I’m doing this:

• I’m constantly on the hunt for people with gusto. When I find them, we stick together.
• I compete with these people each day to see who’s created the most value or done something ridiculous.
• Follow me on twitter or via my blog to keep up.

Mission #2: Making damn sure Austin is technologically progressive and competitive.

How I’m doing this:

• Meeting with people in the city who share this desire/vision.
• Opening a coworking space (it’s like a gym for entrepreneurs ??).
• Leading the creation of the Startup District.

50,000ft Mission: Eliminate inequality with empathy and technology.

General Passions: increasing people’s self-confidence …promoting empathy (talking about why it’s important), critical thinking and awareness, spearheading conceptual ideas, building relationships

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I encourage you to go check out Dane’s posts (videos and others) - they make me crack up. Also, you might look into buying The Alchemist.

(BTW, @girk took the picture above when we were in Australia in 2006 :))

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”

Here’s the deal:

(Juan Sequeda asked the city ranking question to PG at StartupSchool and was telling me about it over bagels last week.)

(oh yeah. facial hair. … like I said in my first video up there - boulder, techstars, gwen bell, andrew hyde… kickin some ass. I’ve been to Boulder once (in CO I always go to Telluride with fam) but I’m wanna come see yall soon. …totally agree on the valley talk. …I also know! Austin is a kick ass city and I’m trying to develop this sucker - that’s why we got Startup District rollin. Since southby I gave myself 1 year to see what we could turn this place into, and it’s coming along nicely.)

(sorry ’bout the sound on this one)

Gary In Austin! Tuesday, June 3rd - Austin, TX

• 1:00 PM–Book Signing at Grape Vine Market, 7938 Great Northern Boulevard, Austin, TX 78757

These guys are a blast. Here’s a garyvee with a Radar sticker. heh

Gray is a mofo that knows how to love his fans and customers. I love how it just flows outta the guy — every time he’s talking it’s just like “Thank you sooo much for your question”, “Awesome t shirt”, “I love your burp”, whatever.. he makes ya feel good. Everyone can take a lesson. Kevin was kick ass at this too. Just more to the point - “what your question? BAM I’m gonna tell you the answer; and it’s a good one.”

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.

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.