EVS - Start to Finish

"The kids who grew up inside AOL chat rooms and came of age on Facebook have an intuitive..."

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 10:25:28 -0400

“The kids who grew up inside AOL chat rooms and came of age on Facebook have an intuitive understanding of the power of networks that our generation will never have. They are not asking us to fix the problems we left them with. They are asking us not to get in their way as they try to dig themselves out. I think we owe them that.”

- my partner Brad Burnham’s speech at the Center For Democracy and Technology’s 2012 Annual Dinner.

The Freedom to Innovate - Union Square Ventures: A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on Early Stage & Startup Investing

(via fred-wilson)

Adventure

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 10:49:17 -0500

This weekend I am going camping with some close friends here in Dallas. I’m excited because I love camping (though I have not gone in decades) and I like adventure.

We are going to a campground like 25 minutes away. 1 night. Tents and sleeping bags and 2 meals. See, we’re doing it simple. This makes it easier to go because you aren’t trying to plan for a long trip states away for 5 nights. Just leave this afternoon, set up camp, build a fire, smoke a cigar, go to sleep, eat breakfast, pack up and leave - home in 25 minutes!

Anyways, quick shift…this post I made on September 12 came true. God has done some HUGE things in my hear. I’ll post that later someday. But know that the plates shifted and it did result in less of me and more/all of God!

Lastly, back to adventure, did you ever think about how adventure always entails outdoor things in nature? Like, no one ever says, “I want more adventure! I’m going to stay in today and sit on the couch and explore Facebook.” NO! It entails oceans, distant lands, danger, risk, outdoors, mountains, rivers, forests, hiking, exploring, and unknown.

And most of us always want more adventure in our lives, if we are honest. So why do we spend so much time in front of the computer, TV, tablet, smartphone (I know, I’m on a computer right now…oops)?

Hipmunk Blog: Home of the savvy traveler: We're Flying Someone Home for Thanksgiving...

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:33:55 -0500

Hipmunk Blog: Home of the savvy traveler: We're Flying Someone Home for Thanksgiving...:

hipmunk:

First off, thank you so much for all the amazing, thoughtful, and inspiring words you sent us about why you want to be with your family, friends, and loved ones on Thanksgiving. While we wish we could fly all you of you home for the holidays, what we CAN do is fly five of you home—and we’re…

3#Labs: I got 99 problems but ENGAGEMENT ain't 1!

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:52:58 -0400

3#Labs: I got 99 problems but ENGAGEMENT ain't 1! :

3poundlabs:

One of the coolest things to see when building something is to see it *work*.

Imagine Jay-Z writing this song I’m channeling in the title; he thinks of some lyrics, has an idea of a beat, lays the lyrics to a track, releases the track, and sits back and watches how the product fares in the…

3#Labs: Scheduling tweets & posts make you MORE social

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:50:58 -0400

3#Labs: Scheduling tweets & posts make you MORE social:

3poundlabs:

Recently, Amanda from Spiderworking.com wrote an excellent article on scheduling posts to social networks (see it here). What is scheduling you say?

Basically, scheduling a post is when, instead of immediately sharing something on social networks, you queue the post or content for a…

On the cusp of something BiG

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:15:58 -0400

I’m not sure what, but there are major tectonic shifts happening in me. I’m confident the result is going to be something less about me and more about my God.

Needless to say, I’m absolutely thrilled and scared!

philtoronto: joannav: Pictures taken only hours ago of family...

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:10:01 -0400

philtoronto:

joannav:

Pictures taken only hours ago of family members at the World Trade Center Memorial fountains where the names of those who lost their lives are engraved along the edges. I think these are some of the most powerful photos I’ve seen.

#neverforget

"Open your eyes"....

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:53:22 -0400

So, I recently took a trip to Israel with my wife and son (and in-laws). It was a 10 day long trip. It started in the Ben Gurion Int’l Airport, took us to Galilee, then to Jerusalem, around the West Bank, and then ended in hipster Tel Aviv. The primary reason for the trip was to spend time with my wife’s sister and her husband who live in East Jerusalem with their 1.5 yr old daughter.

This trip was *really* difficult, mostly because we took my 11 month old son. But I won’t get into that in this post. I’ll focus on the eye-opening injustices I saw amongst the Palestinian people.

The picture above is a snapshot of the gigantic wall that separates the Palestinian filled West Bank from the rest of the country of Israel. Why is it there? Because the Israeli government wants to control the flow of people in and out of it - namely keeping Palestinians from coming out.

This wall was ominous. I could see it from many different points of the New and Old city of Jerusalem. Often I would double take at it’s presence. When looking at it, I began realizing I was having some inner-conflict about it’s existence. I was asking questions to myself like:

Why is that wall there?
Why did Israel build it?
Why is Israel trying to control the location of the Palestinian people?
How come I’ve never heard about this wall?
Why is that wall not jiving with my heart/stomach/etc.?
Why am I angry that it’s there?
Who taught me growing up that at all costs, pray for the Israeli cause and purposes?
Why did I just blindly believe everything I’ve been told about Israel and their holy, righteous, and godly mission exist and control what geography they believe is theirs?
Who are these Palestinian people and why are they treated this way?
What did the Palestinians do that prompted the building of that wall?
Are my eyes beholding a modern day ‘Berlin Wall’?

There were thousands more, but I’ll spare you. My point with all this is to help you understand I began to question every belief and fact I had heard up until the immediate present. While in Israel, I spent much of my time asking hundreds of questions (mostly to my patient brother-in-law :) and reading as much as I could about the political and religious tension of the country/people groups. I set out to hear out both sides (Israeli & Palestinian) and try to understand the conflict from both points-of-view.

What I concluded (though I’m very much still processing it) is that the Palestinian people (Muslim and Christian) that live in Israel/West Bank/Gaza, suffer grave injustices at the hand of the Israeli government that closely mirror South Africa’s apartheid era.

Example: Everyone in East Jerusalem (Palestinian) pays the same tax as the Jewish West Jerusalem, but they don’t receive any of the civil services (garbage, education, etc.). This results in a much dirtier and run-down East Jerusalem and feeds the Israeli argument that if they cede the West Bank land to Palestine, it will all turn into a grungy, run-down, cesspool. But this is wrong, because the Israeli government makes East Jerusalem run down…but we don’t hear stuff like that.

In all, I am shocked at it all. I’m frustrated at myself for just swallowing the spoonfuls of “Americanism” and “Western Christianity” ideology and not questioning it at all. I feel for the Palestinian people (but do not hold them innocent of violence, etc.). What does God think of this all? What would he do?

3#Labs: Queued.at SmartQueue Scheduler Launched!

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:19:14 -0400

3#Labs: Queued.at SmartQueue Scheduler Launched!:

3poundlabs:

We are super happy to announce the launch of v1.0 of the Queued.at SmartQueue scheduler.

Now when you click the button in Queued.at to schedule a post, we crunch 6 (and growing) variables to select the absolute perfect time to publish your post.

Some of our early data is showing…

I was thinking about my nutritional health recently. I want to...

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 15:30:35 -0400

I was thinking about my nutritional health recently. I want to get back into athleticism, sports, and overall good health. Knowing these things are easier to do if I am eating right, I began to realize I have a problem.

Problem: I am not good at eating healthy meals from the food already in my house. Nor am I good at buying the correct foods while I’m at the store to supply me with weeks worth of healthy meals.

So, I’m coming up with a solution. It will entail a mobile phone app (SHOCKER!) and will be super slick.

More to come soon,

Eric

Really interesting. Did you know this about...

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:42:10 -0400

Really interesting. Did you know this about Twitter????

gary:

The @ system, do you understand it?

"Run from all this runaround…"

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:54:26 -0400

“Run from all this runaround…”

- “Like a Game” written by Jeremy Mederich

davemorin: Juxtaposed. Riots, fire, destruction after...

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 10:11:23 -0400

davemorin:

Juxtaposed.

Riots, fire, destruction after Vancouver’s loss - National Post

bradleyjoyce [dot] com: How to Deal With the Bootstrappin' Blues

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:02:27 -0400

bradleyjoyce [dot] com: How to Deal With the Bootstrappin' Blues:

bradleyjoyce:

Founding and building a startup is not a walk in the park. I recently stumbled across this great and true quote from Mike McDerment, the CEO and founder of FreshBooks on this very subject:

“Doubt is born out of fatigue and loneliness, and there is a lot of both when you are running a…

Honored, Thrilled, Exhausted

Tue, 31 May 2011 16:27:56 -0400

This past Wednesday, the 25th of May, my business partner (Ryne DeBoer) and I hosted “TYE Down DFW: 2011 | Gary Vee in Big D!” in Dallas. Here is the link to the website —-> http://garyveeinbigd.com

It was by far one of the most fun and most challenging things I’ve ever done. It was also one of the most rewarding. In 90 days, Ryne and I built an event around Gary Vaynerchuk’s last stop of his book tour promoting his second piece, ‘The Thank You Economy’.

We were honored that so many showed up - about 500 people across DFW! We were honored that the speakers came out from Austin, San Francisco, and NYC. Having Gary Vaynerchuk and Mike Yavonditte out in Dallas was so amazing. We are stoked at the future opportunities with them.

We were thrilled that we were able to partner with corporate sponsors like Dell, Hashable, Verizon Wireless, Rackspace, and many others.

And, we were exhausted for like 3 days after the event. Good thing we were able to recharge over the long holiday weekend.

We have some sweet stuff in the works - we’ll keep you posted!

theopportunityengine: Put your pencils down!!!

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:39:48 -0400

theopportunityengine:

Put your pencils down!!!

gary: See You in 2015!

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:12:59 -0400

gary:

See You in 2015!

Little Known Fact....

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 22:30:46 -0400

It’s a little known fact that nobody but my wife knows. I literally just got finished doing it, so I thought I’d write a short post.

Here ‘tis: I hone my kitchen knives at random moments of the day or week, just because. Usually I do it because it hasn’t been done in a while. But that isn’t that weird, is it?

The more interesting part is, I LOVE IT. I love honing my kitchen knives. All of them - big, small, steak, paring, etc. I meticulously hone each knife to perfection, or at least what I think is perfection. I LOVE HONING my kitchen knives, at random moments of my life.

Oh, also check out http://garyveeinbigd.eventbrite.com

Cheers,

Humanization of 'x'

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:40:52 -0500

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Gary Vaynerchuck’s new book, The Thank You Economy.

He makes a great case that in the new economy, business needs to be humanized again; that in order to thrive and move forward, you have to move backwards in time and begin using the principles of our grandparent’s generation.

To win, you have to care. Be personable. Build real trust. Gain loyalty. Not just by price, but by “giving a crap”.

He argues that “giving a crap” is scalable. I think it is - I’m finding that it is.

What is the next big company to die because they don’t “give a crap” about their customers? Google? Amazon? Groupon?

Ready....set.....go!

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 19:47:50 -0500

Another cheesy picture. I like it though. It’s my style.

There are some amazing things brewing. I am thankful and really grateful.

Much to do. Lots of work. But some cool stuff.

I’ll update you as it unfolds.