My Wordle...

My Del.icio.us wordle:



Thanks to Brad and Amy. I didn't know there was such a thing as a Wordle before.

Powell and Obama (video)

Well done video on Powell's endorsement of Obama and well worth the slightly over Five minutes of your life it'll take to watch.



I can't say I love Colin, not after his show at the UN claiming 'Iraq has WMD's', But this helps. And, he is definitely a Republican that other Republicans and conservative independents listen to.

I also think his statement that Obama's a Christian, has always been a Christian but, what if he wasn't? Why would it matter... is so dead on, so obvious and so the right thing, I have to say: hats off to the man. It's about time someone stood up for what America really stands for.

Oil Prices vs. Gas Prices

Light sweet crude ($/barrel) 72.70
as of 10/16/08.

So...

If Crude Oil is $148.00 a barrel, and Gas Prices are around $3.95 a gallon,

Wouldn't it make sense that when Crude Oil get's down to $72.70 a barrel, that Gas Prices would be around $1.98 a gallon?

$1.98

Makes sense eh?

I'm seeing...... $3.09 (lowest price) here in Boulder.

When Crude Oil prices go up, the price at the pump goes up, next day at the latest.

How much is gas at your gas station?

What does an 83 IQ score mean to you?

The average IQ for an American Citizen is slightly over 100.

Apparently, this is Sarah Palin's IQ as a high school student.

The original is here. It's a background report on Sarah Palin.

Her SAT scores are bottom of page 3. IQ scores top of page 4.

Just sayin....

Warren and Charlie mix it up

There's an excellent interview with Warren Buffet up on Charlie Rose's site.

This is the full interview (almost an hour) but worth it. He isn't called the Sage of Omaha for nothing.

How to pitch to a VC: High speed compressed version by David S. Rose

There's a great TED video by David S. Rose, startup guy and now a VC on how to pitch to a VC. There's lots of these out there but this is an amazingly well done, compacted and fast paced version well worth watching.

They invest in people.

You have at most 18 minutes to get the idea across.

First, You have to get across Integrity (straight shooter).
Second, Passion for what you're doing.
Third, Experience. Serial entrepreneurs are favored.
Forth, Knowledge and domain expertise.
Fifth, Skills to get a company going.
Sixth, Leadership, to get the full set of skills in place to run the company
Seventh, Commitment, to stay to the very end.
Eighth, Vision.
Ninth, Realism.
Tenth, Coachable.



Start like a rocket. 10 seconds to grab them.

From there, a solid steady upward graph that gets better and better that knocks it out of the park at the end. Never skip a step or go backwards. think "Logical Progression".

Provide touchstones like referencing companies the Angel or VC might know of, give them outside validation, things the potential investors knows of and can touch on.

An upside and believable. Show both. "$1m revenue is 3 years' isn't an upside "$1B in 24 months" isn't believable.

Never say things that aren't true. Ever. If you do, 1/2 of what you've said and will say will be discounted (no one's done this before is a good example).

Treat them like a 6th grader, walking them through it, but don't be condescending. Tricky, but essential.

Typos will kill the deal: how do you run a company if you can't run spell check?

Steve Jobs is the master at this. Watch him and learn. (Yea, I know I bash Apple a lot, but it's only because I love them. If I didn't care, I wouldn't say anything).

He then goes into a step by step on the presentation itself.

Top five tips for the presenter:

Always use presenter mode
Always use remote controls (don't touch the computer)
Handouts are NOT the presentation. The handout stands without you.
Do not read your speech
Never, ever, look at the screen. You're connecting with the audience first and foremost.

Worth every second of the 14 minutes and 39 seconds that it runs.

There's No Arguing With Conservatives ... No, Seriously, Scientific Studies Prove It

<--giuliani in drag

A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder. In essence, schooling See the report from the Washington Post article on the study, which came out yesterday

Can't say I'm surprised.

I suppose this means the whole 'trying to reason' with conservatives is just moot. I've experienced it (many times) first hand with my conservative friends, but now I know for certain what I've always suspected... it's just how their brains seem to work.

I always said it was genetic. I was kidding, but, turns out, it was a little bit true.