I need to start off by first thanking Paul and Kady for creating and hosting such a great event. They do a great job of bringing people together with 1 Piazza and the Startup Rockstars demo events.The latest event at Viget Labs went fantastic. We spend so much time chained to a computer trying to get everything just right with our applications that it’s  a huge benefit to get in front of some the brilliant people in the area, show your concept and have a chance to see the flaws you’ve missed or chosen to ignore. It was a lot of fun, and it was great to see some other really cool things being developed.

We had a lot of people asking great questions during our presentation, and the discussions that followed were all very helpful to us. I had a pleasure talking with Michael Mayernick from www.Contribune.org about the challenges of starting a company in the area. I hope to get a Beta Invite to check out his site soon and see what it is all about.

Jonathan Aberman from Amplifier Venture Partners had an impromptu introduction talking about what the current financial crisis means for startups, specifically ones looking to go the route of obtaining VC financing. The general message: It’s not the end of the world, but be prepared for less people getting funded, especially without a proven revenue model or clean exit.

The other Rockstars from the event:

GamerVixens

Christina had a wonderful presentation showing off her site: www.gamervixens.com. GamerVixens is a social network for female gamers. Tackling the social network space is a dangerous target, but they are going about it perfectly. The sexy branding possible with GamerVixens is powerful. I was talking to someone after her presentation that summed it up perfectly: “What is cooler than a chick that plays video games?” The flow in their site was fantastic and their development, with well used ajax, was done phenomenally . It was lightweight, unobtrusive, yet still powerful.

BrandClik 

The guys from Brandclick have a great product with a lot of potential. They have their act together and I fully expect them to become a very big deal, so I’m glad I got to meet them now before they are on the cover of Inc or Business Week Magazines. From what I can tell it works  their site helps marry content providers and advertisers in a very novel and needed way. From an advertisers perspective If your brand, or any other keyword you select, appears on the content sites you have chosen to partner with it will automatically create a link to a site within your domain.

They have a lot put together already, and you can see a lot of avenues they could go down with their concept. They were recently featured in the Washington times here, discussing starting out in the current financial circumstances.

CreateDebate

CreateDebate is a platform for creating and managing debates about virtually any topic. They had a well put together site, and it appeared to have quite a few users. I was hoping to catch up with them after the presentation to hear more, but only met them briefly. Would love to hear more about it next time I have the opportunity.

OurCoupleSpace 

Gary presented OurCoupleSpace very well. OurCoupleSpace hopes to help couples that are having issues with their relationship by utilizing technology to point out the true areas they find important and to better communicate their needs. Obviously with the eHarmony’s of the world, this is a space that has a lot of recent interest and I think it’s a good idea. I wish him the best of luck, and look forward to seeing more of what comes of the project.

I know I know, you were expecting another restaurant review as my next blog post, but this is much more exciting. We have finished the private testing and evDeliv is now  open to the public in Washington, DC. We have over 35 restaurants in the DC area, depending on where you are located. The testing phase went fantastic, and has been acclaimed as the new WAY of food delivery through the greater DC area. To kick off our inaugural season, we will be one of the presenters at Startup Rockstars http://startuprockstars.com/ presented by Vigit Labs http://www.viget.com/.

We are honored to be one of the presenters of this awesome team of new companies. I have had the pleasure of meeting with from Jai from Zippy Jobs http://zippyjobs.com/ at a prior Twin Tech event and was intrigued by his idea to help find jobs for college students. I am excited to hear more about http://ourcouplespace.com/ and the new ideas they bring to the world of online dating and relationships. The Create Debate site http://www.createdebate.com/ was the greatest hour of distraction covering my afternoon (don’t tell Shawn) with a fantastic website and very interesting content just in time for the 2008 Election. I am excited to hear their presentation as well. We look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow at Startup Rockstar and hear of the innovative tools presented for tomorrow’s Internet. So order some delivery food from www.evdeliv.com (come on I had to say it) and make your way to Vigit Labs in Falls Church.

Oh my goodness. So, the DC Design Babes are having their 2nd event tonight at Fly Lounge. It’s a Munny Sketch party, where everyone gets a chance to show off their design skills in an off medium kind of way. If you’re not sure what a Munny is, I’m sure you’re not alone.

When Valli from DC Design Babes told us they were throwing a Munny Party we were confused, perplexed, baffled, and even maybe a bit befuddled. What is a Munny? Is it pronounced Moony or Money? And once, knowing what it is, we still had to ask why does this thing exist?!? Then we were given one as a substitute for Mac software – at some point I swear I will listen to the Mac maniacs – and try it again. And oh my goodness did we had fun. In ode to the DC Design Babes we knew we wanted to incorporate their logo somehow, but we loved the big ball of a head that looked like it just needed a little ev on it. So  the ev|dcdb Munny was born.

Notice, what we believe, are three very critical design aspects. One) The ev is a little off kilter. This is because ev|dcdb is cool. It’s like wearing a hat slightly off to one side that exudes: “I’m not trying to look like I’m the freshest thing in the room, I just am”. Two) The dcdb is right above the tail. If Munny’s had pants like some girls wear with “Sexy” or “Hot Stuff” painted squarely on their bum, this is exactly how it would look. Which is also cool, in an “I’m not being sexual, but I am” sort of way. This also kind of embodies the name DC Design Babes, which we love! Third) ev|dcdb’s body is  made of stone, because well, (s)he rocks.

Anyways, we are looking forward to seeing everyone at the DC Design Babes DCDB2 event tonight! Looking through the guest list it looks like it should be a good turnout, including some of the DC Tech luminaries such as Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs, Frank Gruber of AOL that runs Tech Cocktails, and Edward Frederick of Living Social. The judges were also announced: Chris Bishop, Graham Jackson an artist for X that also does the loda posters, and  Supon. See ya tonight!

It was so great to see everyone last week at the Twin Tech Party. it was a lot of fun, we gave out tons of the little ev beach balls and it sounds like everyone had a really good time. It was good seeing the folks we knew well out having fun, and meeting tons of new people with really interesting things happening. DC is rising… A couple highlights included: Zippyjobs, which is working with colleges to offer student employment. I loved Aquent’s give away’s, the folks from nclud were friendly as always and I ended up getting a cigar from Martin (lifesaver), and Peter did a fantastic job of putting on the entire event.

I wanted to let everyone know the winners of the drawing we had for the Limited Edition evDeliv Beirut Set (Much more dignified name than Beer Pong but it did end up getting us some honorable mentions on a few blogs including Zach’s Washbiz blog) and the Limited Edition evDeliv Picnic Set. Aptly picked prizes for both sides of the Twin Tech Town.

David Fogel, from xculture.tv was the winner of the Beirut Set. David has a number of fascinating projects going right now focused around merging the online media space with real social interactions, and in helping local businesses and people. I dropped off the Beirut Set off this afternoon at his modern, artsy flex office space, Space 88,  and he let me know of some cool events he hosts at Eighy Eight, both focused heavily on art, positive urban planning and community building.  Very cool stuff. Sonia Taylor of Allison and Partners won the picnic set, but we have not been able to reach her yet. Congrats to both of them!

Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

Nicholas Carr in a recent post: “Is Google Making us Stupid?” discussed his basic feeling of how our minds deal with the information overload in the digital age. Or more precisely, how our minds are altered by the new half real, half virtual world we find ourselves in. So much of it rang true that I am tempted to go beyond just quoting his piece, but to actually dissect llines of it piece by piece. I’m not capable of reading a long blog post, I can barely read a blog post period. I skim. I look over the key words, trying to grasp the main concept. Even when researching a development issue or trying to define a new strategy I look for the “do this, now do this” part to get my desired result as quickly as possible, and then am disappointed when the solution isn’t miraculously achieved when I performed actions I didn’t even vaguely  understand. I am a  child. I am clueless.. I am lost in the Internet age…

That’s only half the truth however. While most people involved in Social Media would agree that at times, they also perceive that they are losing the ability to digest a long piece of sustained one sided flow of information from one source, they also believe that this “power browsing”, as Nicholas described it is, what gives them their super human powers. What is special about reading something for a sustained amount of time, such as a book, is the ability to set the book down, contemplate, understand, then go back to reading. What power browsing does is allow for people to connect the dots on a higher level. Let’s not forget that inside of each of our brains is still a powerful processing unit capable of quickly reading through garbage, processing, and taking away what is important. While you may now be skimming my post, you still might catch an enlightening sentence here and there and discard the rest of my over indulgent crap.

My question remains, however, do we actually allow ourselves enough time to contemplate? Are we really connecting the dots to deeper understanding or just flailing through an ADD fantasy? What do you think?

BTW, I kept this short because I feel, just like me, most of you would have quit reading by now if it was longer. (is this even bad?)

Somewhere in the midst of pushing for change in DC, I started throwing out the concept that I should be president, I started talking about it in chat rooms, blogs and to anyone that would listen. I never thought it would go far, but it is starting to catch on. I need your support, however, to keep this going! Email me to see how you can help! We’ve been getting quite a bit of press lately, below is a clip from Channel 3 News here in DC.

 I want to thank everyone I had a chance to speak with at Blog Potomac. As always these type events humble and remind me that there are so many smarter people than I in the DC tech community. I had to leave after lunch for a development meeting, but overall the event was very helpful for us as we setup our first corporate blog, which was this weekend’s battle. Although it was cast as an “un-conference”, I would have liked a little time in between to talk with people other than in passing, but I’m sure people had time later int he day to have more in-depth conversations. The speakers were on point and helped to remind me why we were setting up this blog in the first place!

It was good to talk with Luke Richmond about his current stealth project underway. Lionel Menchaca of DELL had some great points about integrating a blog into DELL’s corporate strategy. Their blog at www.direct2dell.com shows how companies large and small can benefit from the social media communication medium.  Jared Goralnick, a great blogger, and President of SET Consulting as always had some great comments and questions. Although I didn’t really get a chance to talk with him it was good to see Shashi Bellamkonda, the Swami of Social Media from Network Solutions for a brief time.

 Ok, so we have ourselves a blog now for evDeliv. Now what do we do with it? With the energy we are putting into blogging instead of the myriad of other issues facing us we’ve been forced to take a hard look at what we are doing here. The truth is, I feel like I am trying to pretend that we are doing this for all the right reasons (engage customers, allow a discussion about our brand, company strategy and direction, and because we truly feel we have something deep and meaningful to say. the truth is however, while these are great reasons, I fear the real reason is somewhat distracting and takes away form the benefits we could see. Blogging is also clearly a marketing tool, allowing us to create a larger brand, and personal brand for myself and the rest of our small team. To reach our fingers out across the net and start to have some clout. The problem with this, is that it doesn’t inspire us to write anything new or useful, and it makes the whole act of doing this feel empty and hollow. If it is only to let people know we are launching evDeliv. It will feel empty barren, black & white, and boring.

So what are the uses for this blog that can be both rewarding for us and the people that read it?

Clarify our own thoughts

Only through conversations with others, and ourselves can we develop a mature understanding of the concepts we grasp. Moments of elucidation may occur fleetingly, late at night, or in a rush of insight, but only by digesting that information through communication and thought can something real be garnered from it.

Provide a mechanism for criticism

What is great about ideas, is that they are highly moldable objects. Without the right tools a piece of wood, is just a piece of wood, but given a saw, tape measure, router, sander, screws, putty, stain, and veneer it can become almost anything the creator can imagine. The same is true of ideas. Given two-way communication, and insight an idea can be molded, bent, prodded, and shaped into being something real, tangible and useful.

Discuss Topics important to us

In any two-way communication you are actively involved will, the topic will invariably be 50% what you want and 50% what the other participants want. (We will ignore the fact that the sum is greater int he pieces in this case) By blogging and discussing the concepts we have we allow the conversation in our life to naturally

One thing I constantly have to remind myself is to accept criticism. Not even just accept it. Relish in it. Roll around on the floor in it. Actively seek it out from every source, from a babbling idiot on the street, to technology experts, to tech savvy kids that are convinced of their own unalienable 20-20 vision of the future.

In starting EV, we have sought the council of CEOs, developers, bloggers, venture capitalists, friends, colleagues, and anyone else that would listen to our own vision.

From them we have heard the good, bad, and indifferent:

“If you don’t do this, someone else will, and it WILL be here.”

“Why would you make a desktop platform, everything is going web”

“It seems you have the bull by the tail. It’s too big and your resources are too sparse”

Each of these spats of –isms, and many more we have heard, is true to a point and helpful to us, but they certainly can’t stop our progress.

“You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn” - Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

One thing that has constantly struck me as we go through the process of building a company is to relish criticism and mistakes. If we didn’t we would not be able to keep moving forward. In every area of business, communication and software development there are people that are better, faster, and stronger than you. But to improve and to reach new levels you have to be able to talk to an expert in that area, accept the truth of what they are saying, improve and keep moving forward. One thing to me is clear, much like we all do with the concept of death; You must blind yourself to failure and to actively repress that success is not a given or you can never be successful. 

And a moment of zen: Julie’s suggestion for our blog header:

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