Milosh the Great!

Working at a place called the Institute for the Future comes with its pitfalls. One is that from time to time we must deal with *interested* parties who want to talk to us about their predictions.

Today, Milosh called in again, and he was transferred to me. I quickly decided to take notes:

• talking to milosh right now
• this is milosh who predicts things
• like hillary clinton will be the next president
• he's a bus driver for the city of new york
• before that a tour bus driver
• he spends time fixing his house
• and lots of things around the neighborhood
• when he comes up with an idea...like about the future
• he came up with hillary clinton being president
• he's gonna meet them [the clintons]
  
• it's exactly the way it will happen
• his boss doesn't believe him
• he doesn't know the name...he knows it is clinton
• he has some minor preditions
• that he presents to family & friends
• accidents or something similar
• give me homework
• i have no control over it
• but i can give you an answer
• i can give you name
• i can give you something...for example...what is your interest
• where is the stock market going to be
• everything around me, that is what i see
• i tell you and we see if true in three years
• which companies you work with want to know what i know?
• thank you for your time

We've been talking to Milosh for years now. He's good-humored and friendly, but I don't think we'll be hiring him anytime soon.

STIRR 1.5 is on Wednesday

Wednesday, August 9th, STIRR Mixer

STIRR Mixers are blend of tech-social mixer and launchpad for new startups in an innovative format (the 60 second spot). This is not a sit-down event.

The Original '60 Second Spot'

The companies start presenting at 7:15pm. The pitches are a compact 60 seconds or less. The speakers and their teams are available to speak with one-on-one before and after the presentations.

Launching:

• ConnectBeam, Puneet Gupta, CEO
• OpenDNS, David Ulevitch, CEO
• YouSendIt, Ivan Koon, CEO

Have your company present at STIRR

Details

When: Wednesday August 9th. Gathering begins at 6:00pm, presentations at 7:15pm.
Where: Blue Chalk, 630 Ramona St, Palo Alto [map]. Cash bar.
NOTE: No walk-ins accepted, you must RSVP to attend. Pre-printed nametags will be ready at the door.

Venture Capitalist Speed Dating

Funny title for a KPIX story on STIRR.

Joanne's blurb (with an h-bomb!):

STIRR, a Web networking company, runs the mixer and times the presenters to make them get to the point, according to Joanne Wan.

"Tell them, 'how the hell do you actually make money, and what are you trying to do?' No slide shows -- just you and the mic," she said.

My international travel needs some help though

create your own visited countries map

Early next year, I'll add Fiji. But what is up with me and no trips to Europe (besides that long weekend to Paris a few years ago)? Pretty weak, huh?

States I have visited (the red ones)

create your own visited states map

I have to thank my grandmother (and my mother) for getting me and my brother into the ol' motor home when we were younger, which allowed us to hit up all those West Coast states early on. Travel for work has pretty much put me in each state as well. I can see going to Arizona and Montana for ski trips or to just *see* those states, but not sure about Oklahoma. Besides oil, twisters and lots of steak restaurants, I know very little about that state.

Morph your face

The St. Andrew's Face Morpher allows you to upload an image of yourself (or a friend) and look at yourself differently: young, old, east or west asian, african-american & also some artistic views. Here I am as a manga character. For fun, you can also see what you would look like as a monkey...well, at least 50% of one.

STIRR gets podcasted, again

Vic from HotFromSiliconValley podcasted & snapped pics of STIRR 1.4. Conversations include:

• Andrew Martinez-Fonts, Product Manager, Prosper
• David Snider, Co-Founder, Boompa
• Jeff Zwelling, President & Co-Founder, Echosign
• Jakob Snilsberg, VP Business Development, Jajah

Also...we should be on KPIX (Channel 5) sometime next week, as they were there filming for a couple of hours.

Don't Push The Button!!!

This is one of the most addicting things I've done in a long, long time! Enjoy!

Pirates on a Houseboat!

The gang took off for Lake Shasta for our third annual Fourth of July weekend houseboating adventure. This year we thought it would be cool to have a theme and went with pirates. Everything went smoothly until one idiot decided to hurt himself on Saturday morning. After a five hour pause in the fun, we resumed the festivities on Saturday night. Hiking to our favorite waterfall, eating great food, drinking sangria & Mike's Hard Lemonade and cruising the reservoir at 3mph made for a great weekend. Hoping to make it four in a row next year!

Note: We went with a boat from Sugarloaf Resort this year and would never go to another marina unless forced to do so. They treat you like royalty there!

Google's PageRank -- Why is STIRR.net still a zero?

So...the STIRR.net website has been around since mid-March or so...and we still have a PageRank of ZERO (if you are using Firefox and have the Google toolbar...you will see our unworthiness in Google's eyes). Stirr.com (not affiliated with STIRR.net) is a link farm, so are we punished because our URLs are so similar?

No love on Google Search for "stirr" or on Ask. However, all of these guys have us number one: Yahoo! Search; MSN Search; A9 Search. Anyone have an idea why this is so?

[Update: We ran into a Google engineer that works close to the PageRank team, asked him and voila...we now have a PageRank of 5.]

STIRR 1.4

Wednesday July 12th, STIRR Mixer

STIRR Mixers are a blend of tech-social mixer with a forum for tech entrepreneurs to present new products and services in an innovative format (the 60 second spot). This is not a sit-down event.

60 Second Spots

There will be 4 early stage companies presenting on-stage at 7:30pm. The pitches are a compact 60 seconds or less. The speakers and their teams will be available to talk with right after the presentations.

Presenting:

• CrowdFactory, Alexander Mouldovan, CEO
• EchoSign, Jeffrey Zwelling, Co-Founder
• Gliffy, Chris Kohlhardt, Co-Founder
• Jajah, Jakob Snilsberg, VP

Have your company present at STIRR

Details

When: Wednesday July 12th. Gathering begins at 6:00pm, presentations at 7:30pm.
Where: Blue Chalk, 630 Ramona St, Palo Alto [map]. Cash bar.
NOTE: $10 with RSVP. No walk-ins accepted, you must RSVP to attend. Pre-printed nametags will be ready at the door.

Sponsors

This month's STIRR Mixer is sponsored by CommerceNet. CommerceNet invests in groundbreaking ideas that go beyond the scope of traditional venture investments. CommerceNet: From ideas to impact.

By Invite Only

Due to limited space, this month's event is by invitation only. Spaces usually free up before the event, so please join the waiting queue to get first priority.

[Update: Brian Solis (PR 2.0 blog) has a SOLID wrap-up of STIRR 1.4. Thanks Brian!]

STIRR's first Podcast

Mike Macadaan & Tami Zhu from AOL dropped by STIRR and podcasted our event. Those interviewed are:

• Dorrian Porter, Mozes
  
• Jeff Clavier, SoftTech VC
  
• Tara Anderson, Valleyschwag
  
• Jessica Hardwick, SwapThing
  
• Jakob Snilsberg, Jajah
  

Wedding Reception Damage!

10 guests, 11 bottles, 1 wedding reception table. Ah! Thanks Nancy and Long...we had a great night!

Artifacts from the Future

Business 2.0 wrote a story about some of the work that we do at the Institute. My colleague, Alex, provides his thoughts on the story.

Web 3.0 kills startups?

At work last week, the word/phrase "Web 3.0" came up in a serious conversation. My co-worker, Mike Love responded with a phrase that we turned into a t-shirt. I wore one last night at Valleywag's Infinity Plus One Sloshcon and handed out a few to some folks. Will it become a meme? Will it fade away? We shall see. If you want one, go ahead and buy yourself one.

[Thanks for the picture, Jeremiah!]

[Update...Nick Valleywagged the shirt!]