The second annual Seattle 2.0 Awards were held last night at the Bell Harbor Conference Center on the beautiful downtown Seattle waterfront, and just like last year, the event was a big success.  I was there representing Seattle 2.0 in my capacity as a contributing blogger, and I heard I was one of over 400+ attendees.

What I liked:

Smiles. Does anyone have a better smile in the startup community than Glenn Kelman of Redfin?  He accepted two awards: one personally, for Best Entrepreneur Blog, and one on behalf of Redfin, which won Best Startup.  Glenn gave the keynote last year at the inaugural Seattle 2.0 Awards and although I’ve never met him personally, he appears to be the happiest guy on the planet.  Also: he’s shorter than he looks.

George Bernard Shaw. Speaking of keynotes, Jonathan Sposato of Picnik/Google gave the keynote this year and knocked my socks off.  He’s a really great speaker.  No notes!  He quoted George Bernard Shaw, who [paraphrasing] said that “90% of success is casting”, in keeping with a recurring theme of the night – award recipients making a big deal out of the quality of their supporting team.  I like to think Seattleites are especially nice that way.  Also: Cary Grant is cool.

Poker. My friend Bob Crimmins of iMedExchange hustled everybody by winning the inaugural Poker 2.0 tournament at the S2A awards.  I hope it’s continued next year.  I also hope Bob wins again next year, because everybody loves a champion.  Plus, reading the bitchy tweets of the losers will be hilarious.

Diversity. Unlike last year, when it seemed like Picnik ran away with everything, there was a broad set of winners and nobody could be considered to have swept the field.   I think that’s a good thing.  On the other hand, maybe last year’s Picnik win was prescient, what with Picnik getting acquired by Google for a billion dollars or whatever it was.

Leadership. It’s obvious that Seattle 2.0 is in great hands with the addition of Jennifer Cabala as CEO.  She managed the proceedings very well and obviously put a lot of effort into making the night a success.

What could be improved:

Audio. Multiple complaints of poor audio in the back, and the acoustics in Bell Harbor were a little weird.  The gabfest on the demo floor, which was immediately adjacent to the seating for the awards ceremony, didn’t help.

Demo Partners. Was it just me, or did the lineup of demo providers seem a little thin?  I stay fairly close to the community and I don’t think any of the top 100 companies on the Seattle Startup Index were demoing.

Retrospectives. It would be nice to have a little PowerPoint presentation (did I just write that? Gah!) showing key events in the Seattle startup scene from the past year – major acquisitions, funding announcements, new companies, IPOs (what’s that?), etc.  Also, the “Best Startup” category is sort of like “Best Picture” at the Academy Awards, so it would have been nice to have a slide per company describing what they do.  Maybe video!  Just think how many more awards Redfin might have won had Glenn Kelman delivered a video clip to all the voters extolling the smiley-ness of the Redfin corporate culture.

Loved the night.  Loved reconnecting with friends new and old, and I love the Seattle startup community.  See you at the next event!

Whew.  Yesterday was a busy day.  It started before dawn, at Zoka, working on the laptop.  I’m trying to finish this mini-project this weekend and except for pushing the bits out to a server I think that I’m done.  That feels good.

Then a great coffee meetup.  I really enjoy meeting new people and getting to know them in real life, especially tweeps.  Zoka was so busy that the coffee meetup ended up being sans coffee, but I still had a really enjoyable conversation with a potential new friend.

Then, a walk around Greenlake with one of my oldest friends (in duration, not age!) – and even thought we got rained on, it was, as always, a great talk.    Ran into my friends Marina and Nathan, who were walking around the opposite way.  Then a nap.  Then some FA Cup soccer – the Southampton / Portsmouth derby, which was quite the exciting game.  More coding.  Then to the gym, where I erupted in a frenzy of I-haven’t-worked-out-in-four-days energy.  I’m pleasantly sore this morning, which is yet another nice feeling.

Last night I went to a Seattle 2.0 party, ostensibly a going away party for Twilio’s Director of Marketing, Danielle Morrill, even though she’s effectively already left Seattle for San Francisco already.  It was a low-key affair at Vessel, which is a hip and aggressively trendy place that serves extremely good-looking drinks.  I was surprised by two things: 1) They didn’t have any beer on tap.  Is that really “full bar”?  2) They didn’t have any non-alcoholic beers; one of our group asked and was denied.  Apparently I’m not the only one that has had their eyebrows raised by this place.  Anyway, it was nice to hang out for a few hours and meet Jen Cabala of the SMC board, and get to know her a bit.

I’m excited to get back on the blogging wagon at Seattle 2.0 and contribute some new ideas that we can put into place.

Overall?  Feeling a little burnt out.  You know the feeling; like you’d like to prop your feet up in front of the fire, put on a movie, and veg out for a couple days.  Tomorrow’s a holiday, so maybe I’ll try to recover some of that feeling before going back to work on Tuesday.

Happy Valentine’s Day, wherever you are!

Wow!  What a week.  By week I mean the last seven days or so.  Lots going on.

In some ways, I could let recent events make me cynical – make myself think that the world is hard, cold, bitter, and desolate.  I choose – I choose! – not to take that view, however.  I remain, despite a lot of pressure, firmly convinced that the world is a good place, full of good people, and that it might just take some time for that attitude to bear fruit.

I definitely don’t want to go through life thinking negative thoughts all the time.

And a few things have happened that have been undeniably positive.  Take, for example, a lunch meeting I had today with Emily Hine and Chris Wilson from Global Mojo.  They are part of a team of so-called “social entrepreneurs” building a browser that, when used, helps contribute money to schools and nonprofits.  They are passionate, positive, engaged, and skilled.  How could I *not* have a good time talking about social ventures with them?  I took lots of notes in preparation for a more detailed Seattle 2.0 post on Global Mojo and the broader “social venture” trend, which I hope to have out in the next couple weeks.

What else?  I had a couple great workouts in the last week; in one, I bench-pressed my bodyweight five times (five reps), which makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something with all the weight training.

Spent some quality time with the kids, which is always wonderful.

Life spent in the right attitude – one of positivity and cheerfulness, of hope and optimism and kindness, beats the alternatives.  Life hands you shit sometimes.  Life hands you shit for MONTHS sometimes.  Nobody says you have to respond by feeling shitty yourself.  Short bursts?  Sure.  Long-term?  Boy,that’s a sucky way to live.  I choose otherwise.

Tonight: A kindergarten concert for my son, followed by a mad dash down to SODO for the first indoor soccer match of the season!  Excited to score some goals and dribble my way magnificently past six defenders for a left-footed over-the-shoulder bicycle kick to win the championship.

From my latest Seattle 2.0 blog post, “Startup Decision-Making Done Right”:

If you’re a startup founder, you should be good at making decisions.  If you aren’t, you’re going to have a rough time of it – because the better part of your first year or three will be spent making them.  You’re the boss, you’re on your own, and you have nobody to fall back on.

Check it out.  Leave a comment!

I’ll stop doing this soon, I promise, but I’m still a little giddy when I see my name and photo on the front page of the Seattle 2.0 website:

You can read the whole blog post here.  Leave a comment!

These great quotes have flown by on my tweetstream recently:

”If you don’t like where you are, change it! You’re not a tree.”

“When looking at Switching Costs . . . don’t forget to consider Switching Gains (emotional, social, psychological, etc.)”

On a related note, I finished my second blog post for Seattle 2.0 this morning.  It should go live tomorrow morning at 6 AM.  The topic is the Endowment Effect and whether or not we can use this hypothesis to explain any resistance to making the leap and starting your own business.  On this blog, however, my interests for the moment lean more in a personal direction, and I wonder if the EE can explain resistance to change in general.  I think it can.  I think the EE makes sense and that we overvalue what we currently have and undervalue that which we might potentially have were we to make changes.

I was interested, but not surprised, to find that one of the primary experimental evidence sets in favor of the EE was developed by Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational.  I’m familiar with Dan from his writings on happiness and I think I’ve even blogged about him a couple times in these pages.

Speaking of change, I was talking to a friend this morning who has an interest in astrology and was told that “transformation” is a key concept for Scorpios and that we tend to seek out cycles of change, rebirth, reinvention…I’m not a believer in astrology as such, but since I’ve lately been thinking a lot about change and transformation, I was interested to hear her out.

Thought-experiment: If I had to pick ONE THING today to change about myself or my circumstances, what would it be, and why?  As I ponder this question, I will get back to work… Hope you all are having a great day today.

Here it is:

Posted this morning at 6:31 AM PT.  I’m very excited, nervous, and thrilled to be part of the Seattle 2.0 blog staff, and I really hope that my first post is well received.

Head on over to Seattle 2.0 to read the full post, and if you’re so inclined, leave a comment to tell me either (a) you love it, (b) you hate it, or (c) meh.

Look for me every week from here on out!

Believe it or not, I’m now a member of the Seattle 2.0 blog staff.  I’m flattered and honored and hope to be able to contribute timely, engaging, and thought-provoking content on a weekly basis.  At the very least I’ll shoot for “timely” and hope that I’ll luck out on the other two criteria.

On The Pursuit of a Life, I’ve been writing a lot of personal posts in the last few months.  On Seattle 2.0 I’ll shift back to an industry focus, writing about startups, tech, entrepreneurship, and ponies.  Well, maybe not ponies, but I’ll be searching for ways to throw in pony references from time to time.  I want to continue writing in the same “voice” – analytical and witty, allusive and blunt.  In other words, I don’t want to go all soft and corporate on you.

One thing that will be very important for me is to inspire/provoke readers to follow on to my posts with their own comments .  I’ll be active in monitoring and responding to follow-on comments.  There are a lot of smart people out there who will have something to add, and I want to encourage your participation.

I believe my first post is scheduled for Monday, so I had better get writing!  See you there (and here), and please let me know how I’m doing from time to time.

I just registered for the Seattle 2.0 Awards, which is a showcase event recognizing the best in Seattle startups. Marcelo Calbucci of Seattle 2.0 and Sampa is organizing.

Here’s the home page for the Seattle 2.0 Awards
Register for the Seattle 2.0 Awards at Eventbrite
Here’s the Seattle 2.0 Awards press release at MSNBC.com

There’s also a nifty Seattle 2.0 Awards attendee badge that you can see on the left navbar of my blog.

I hope to see you there!