Friday in the Valley

Sorry for the delay in postings, activities that run well into the evening along with 500 games back at our room have detoured me from my blog.

On Friday we headed into San Francisco for a morning visit with Citizen Space. This business is a co-working facility where entrepreneurs can rent out a workspace for $425 dollars per month. One of the coolest aspects of this business is that anybody can come in for a day and use their facilities when vising San Francisco and need to keep their business activities afloat. The people who "rent" here are a very close knit group. Many times their businesses are unrelated but everyone is open to suggestions and shares their experiences openly. Definitely a cool approach to business.

We quickly rushed off across the Bay Bridge towards Pixar, where we were told we had an 11:30 showing and could not be late. Pixar, of course, is a digital animation company that makes movies and has collaborated with Disney on many pictures. Their movies are appropriate for all ages and are awesome for adults. Some movies they have produced are Toy Story, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and their most recent film was Wall-E. It was a stroke of luck that we were even allowed into Pixar. Our Prof was talking about our trip on a cruise over Christmas break and somebody knew somebody who works for Pixar and got us in! As such with companies such as Google and Apple, you must have some pretty good connections to get into any of these companies.



Aside with touring their campus and seeing all of the artwork with impeccable attention to detail that goes along with creating their characters, their ingenuity impressed me the most. Thousands of ideas are generated each year and everyone is told that their ideas are good, the question is how can they make it great. Thousands of storyboards are written before the movie goes into production. Finding Nemo had over 40,000 slides sketched before it was produced.

Before our tour had ended we saw a short for an upcoming movie that I cannot remember (or probably say because of the NDA anyways) that was very funny and will see when it comes out in four years. Afterwards we ate at the Pixar caf where I took way to much food from the salad bar that was about as extravagant as a salad bar can be.

Our last stop for the day was at MobiTV. This company simply streams live TV to your phone. For instance if you were on the subway this coming Tuesday during Barrack's inauguration you could watch it live on your phone. Pretty awesome huh?! One of the six founders of Tivo who is now with MobiTV gave us a great presentation about life as an entrepreneur, life in the Valley and lots of background about the company. It was one of the most productive meetings we have had on this trip and the view was just as awesome. Located on the top floor of the building, our meeting room was wide open with an awesome view of the Bay.


I will keep the night short because this post is getting lengthy....we basically hung around Union Square. Stephanie held an event at the Clift Hotel which we attended for a while and then checked out more of the square before eating dinner and heading back to the hotel.

Until my next post in about a half hour.

Big Businesses and Big Hits

Sorry for the delay in postings. Our days have been full (as expected) and has led to my slacking in the blogger area.

On Thursday we visited some companies named Google and Apple. I previously thought that Google was just some extremely large number and that Apple was a fruit company.....I was way off-base.

We arrived at Google with much anticipation. Rick Klau (Feedburner developer) and former Luther grad Craig Cornelius gave us a quick tour. We were able to see many things although there is not much I can discuss because we signed an NDA. Google's campus is amazing, filled with energy and friendly people along with beauty. The courtyard consists of a company garden, volleyball courts, swimming pool, outdoor dining areas and bicycles scattered everywhere to accompany its many buildings. You would think with all the extra curricular within the work environment that not much would get done, this is far from the truth. Google has such a commitment to their employees it only builds more confidence within their work environment. There is so much I could talk about from how the company has shuttles for people up to 60 miles from work to the free cafeteria to their green initiatives and their interesting work environment.

Google's main purpose is to engage people online and organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Everything in this company is data driven. There is no such thing as a "hunch." Bring data to the table and present it. Did you know that every minute 13 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube? Or that every four hours enough information is uploaded to the Internet by Google to fill the Library of Congress? This philosophy is heavily rooted in the fact that they believe the world will be a better place if people are knowledgeable; which will lead to people making better decisions.

As if visiting Google wasn't cool enough, we were privileged enough to visit Apple headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop in Palo Alto, Ca. Jeremy and Joe gave us the opportunity for some Q and A before a walk inside the courtyard and provided us with a meal at the Apple caf. This was an extreme benefit because it is extremely rare that anybody who is not an Apple employee to be allowed inside their buildings, let alone the courtyard.

It was neat to hear from Apple employees describing their work environment and how they handle their work. A lot of projects are done on teams and it appears to be somewhat secretive among workers and then people up the ladder link them together. Where with Google people are working on side projects with workers in completely different departments with their 20% of work time to explore other company interests. Apple seemed to be a much more secretive company that was less transparent. Either way, both strategies seem to be working fine.

We then headed south to San Jose for the Sharks game. It was my first hockey game and we were hooked up with tickets thanks to Stephanie's friend and Luther Alum, Jen. The Sharks lost 3-2 to Calvary but the game was exciting to watch....a lot better than on TV.

For now, it is nearly 1 in the morning and I am tired after a day filled with more travel. We are heading back into San Francisco tomorrow for a day of tourist events including a trip to Alcatraz.

Until next time,

Create, inspire and be inspired.

Day Two

Guy Kawasaki

Our first thing on the agenda for today was to meet with Guy Kawasaki. Guy was Apple's evangelist (he told everybody about a little brand named Macintosh) when they were first getting off the ground and is a very important, influential person here in the valley. He is a true veteran and we were able to harness a lot of his knowledge during our meeting with him this morning. His career has ranged from an evangelist, venture capitalist and speaker at over 95 events a year.

Stephanie has let me borrow one of his books to read and it has lots of information about being an entrepreneur. It contains information on how to sell, speak publicly and present yourself, raise money and how to build a team. Aside from my reading, there were many pieces from listening to him talk that have stuck with me. He encouraged us that if we feel we have something important to say, say it and say it often. There is so much information out there and what you don't know, you don't know. It can be your job to empower people and help make this world a better place by sharing your talents with the world. It is the ideas of great men and the reality that they let everybody know about them that have established the world we see it as today.


After our talk with Guy we had an hour to kill around Palo Alto so we visited the local Apple store and then walked around downtown.

We then had lunch with Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research and author of the book Groundswell. The book is also written with another analyst and incorporates "practical, data-based strategies for companies that want to harness the power of social technologies like blogs, social networks, and YouTube." There are many opportunities for companies to grow if they properly used these applicatoins. We also talked about how her career started and the difficulties of balancing home life along with work.

After lunch, we walked from downtown to Stanford University and checked out the campus and its bookstore. It was a beautiful day today and I felt a little guilty knowing that everybody back in the midwest is stuck in miserable below zero temperatures. Stanford has a beautiful campus and I am sure pictures are being posted as I am writing now.

Tesla Motors

After leaving campus we headed to Tesla motors which is a company who first envisioned a car where people could have the look of a sports car along with the economy of a hybrid. What they came up with is a totally electric vehicle that can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. These cars are incredibly sleek in their design and cost pennies per mile to run. With a price tag around $110,000 I do not forsee myself owning one anytime soon, but they are really cool. In a sence they consider themselves a tech company because the batteries they use to run the cars are litium ion batteries much like the ones we use to run our computers and iPods. Unfortunatly the cars exterior is made of carbon fiber which can also contribute to why bicycles are so damn expensive as well.

The cars themselves are assembled here in the US but with products shipped from all over the world. We were able to see the shop and drivetrain instiliation plants here in Palo Alto.

We then headed to a neat Indian restaurant for dinner with current Google employee and former Luther professor, Craig Cornelius. Dinner was excellent and we will see Craig again tomorrow when we visit the Googleplex and then we are off to Apple in the afternoon and the Sharks game to cap of another awesome day.

Until next time,

Create, inspire and be inspired.

Updates

Check out everybody's photos taken on our trip (I did not pack my camera):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lutherlive

Also, check out Jake's blog from the trip as well here.

Day One

LS9

We started out our tour of "The Valley" with a trip to LS9, a biotechnology firm which specializes in producing a renewable petroleum fuel as diesel. LS9 is based in the South San Francisco area, about a 45 minute drive from our hotel.

At the office/laboratory we learned a lot about the companies vision and the process of acquiring funds to get your ideas further off the ground. Similar to many other great companies, their idea started with two guys in a garage (which I think is where I should start my business, there appears to be a trend). It is not currently a profitable business but has millions of dollars in funding from venture capitalists. Above all, we learned about the process many entrepreneurs in the valley go through to turn their visions into reality through funding, raising capital and branding. We talked about the risks you must take and how you have to be able to look past the risk, but know when it is too much. We also talked about being able to present your ideas and keeping your focus on your purpose.

I found all of the topics we covered very interesting and it was helpful to have a scientific background because I was actually able to understand how the process of turning sugar cane into bio fuel works. Aside from my feelings about "green" alternative fuels, the presentation was extremely informative. John was very knowledgeable and had excellent answers for any questions we had for him.


Sarah Lacy

Sarah is the author of the book, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good. Although I have yet to read the book, our discussion with her was very informative. She had some great insight into life in Silicon Valley. She gave us great information based on her experiences on what to do and how to do handle situations in the entrepreneurial world. I was clearly able to see the passion she has for what she does and as she told us, don't follow the money. If you have passion and love what you are doing, the money will follow you.

From what I could gather from our meeting, she was a very genuine, friendly person and it has translated to her success into journalism and PR. She was one of the first journalists to interview people such as Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg and Digg creator Kevin Rose. It was not because she was the best journalist or because had the most connections, it was because she believed in these people before they were successful and gave them the time of day when nobody else would. She put in the time to get to know them in a sincere way before anybody knew who they were, not because she knew it would help her in the future, but because she was interested in their ideas. The idea of being above somebody was something that crossed her mind and has now led to her being able to catapulte somebody into wider fame through her reporting. In media's terms, she was the first one on the scene. Everybody else was a few months too late.

Sarah seemed to be the person who is able to look past the craziness in peoples ideas and see that they can be useful and that is what Silicon Valley is based upon. Negativity is contagious and I hate it. For instance, it started with a crazy idea such as a computer, which I am sure was shut down my many cynics, and now has completely changed the way we live. People should try their ideas and see how they work out, regardless of who says it cannot work. It is the ideas of many entrepreneurs that have formed an entire community and has attracted people from all walks of life to take part in its development here in Silicon Valley.

We still have the night free, but thus far I have already attained a lot of knowledge from just two meetings. I have been presented with a great opportunity to learn from a lot of very intellegent people. Their stories of success and failure are something I can really use to better prepare myself in a ever changing world.

Until next time,

Create, inspire and be inspired.

Silicon Valley

Arrived in San Jose this afternoon at about noon local time. Checked into the hotel and grabbed a bite to eat before vising the Tech Museum in downtown San Jose.

Weather is awesome! 70 and sunny while I hear the Midwest is getting pounded by snow.

Tomorrow we are heading into San Francisco to meet with LS9 in the morning and two authors in the afternoon, Sarah Lacy and Brian Solis. Check out the link to our schedule here.

Stay tuned for more updates on our travels in Silicon Valley.

Create, inspire and be inspired.

New Years Resolutions

I never have been a huge fan of New Years Resolutions. I think that if you have to wait to a New Year to create new goals, then you are probably five months behind on what you should be accomplishing anyways. In the past, I have never written down any resolutions or even considered thinking about them because I (like most people) never hold true to them.

The problem is that we all are procrastinators. I am guilty as chagred, it's January 5th and I planned on writing this New Years day. The reason it because we get stuck in the dreaming phase about how things could/would be. We all know what we want, but we have trouble committing to the needs to get there. People fear commitment because they fear what may they may become, they could be embarrassed, they could be rejected. People actually fear becoming healthy because they won't receive the same amount of attention as when they are ill. Thoughts like this are absurd!

Too many times we shine all of the light on the negative aspects of our goals. When you focus on the negative it zaps all of your motivation right out of you. People continually talk their goals down, justifying to themselves that their goals are unattainable or unrealistic. The truth about goals is you are either working to get them accomplished or are making excuses to why they are not getting accomplished.

Accept the fact that you may fail. You might fail and people may laugh at you, but who really cares? The only person who you have to satisfy is yourself, because as much as you (and I) think people are paying attention to all of our actions, they are NOT.

As bad as it sounds, have low expectations for yourself. Once you exceeded those expectations, it will become easier to establish new goals and accomplish those. You can't just expect to lose 25 pounds this year without having the simple goal of getting one workout in a day.



Right now is the only moment you ever have.

Start your dreams and goals now.

Create, inspire and be inspired.


"Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -Howard Thurman