Patrick Lor

Scud Stud Wins Another Case Against Big Media

Calgarian Arthur Kent has won yet another battle against big media, this time settling the suit that he launched against Universal Studios earlier this year for unauthorized use of his voice and images in the movie Charlie Wilson's War. Earlier in his career as a journalist, he sued and later settled with NBC over the network's refusal to air his stories about the worsening situation in Afghanistan in the early 1990's. He went on to chronicle the experience in a book titled Risk and Redemption.

Kent, who earned his nickname by reporting from the 1991 Gulf War conflict with Scud Missiles firing in the background, tried his hand at politics earlier this year. His campaign ran into trouble, however, when Premier Ed Stelmach canceled an appearance at a campaign breakfast for Kent. That set off a firestorm of criticism, with Kent firing off most of the shots. The Calgary-Currie riding, which has acted as Alberta's protest vote against the provincial government's rural-partisan agenda, was going to be a tough race for the PCs regardless. In the end, Kent might have been more successful had he run against Stelmach.

But no matter - I have a feeling this isn't the last we've seen of Arthur Kent. It's also no surprise that Kent works best without a boss. He continues to report through his site, SkyReporter, and we find him from time to time hanging out at local barcamps. Stay tuned for more.

ZigTag is now Semantifind

Check out Randy Thompson and Bruce Johnson on the Demo stage showing Semantifind, the latest iteration of ZigTag (which we saw previously at DemoCampCalgary as a tagging/social bookmarking utility). The latest offering is built on top of Google Search, which takes care of all the "so how are you going to compete against Google"-type questions.

Many of you will know Randy Thompson from his work at VentureAlberta, and all of the other work he does with tech startups. Bruce Johnson is another well-known entrepreneur in Alberta, the founder of WinTax and the former CEO of Intuit Canada.

Video From the Nikon D90

The new Nikon D90 has just been released in the U.S., but we're still waiting our turn up in Canada. I snapped a few thousand pics on a recent family vacation, and was going through camera withdrawal after someone broke into our car and stole my D80. The D90 has a few more megapixels, and a huge screen, but the two breakthrough features are liveview (so you can use the screen as your viewfinder, like a point and shoot camera), and video.

Rather than wait, I decided that I needed one right away. It just so happened that I also needed to meet a few companies in the valley earlier this week, so now, I'm the proud owner of a Nikon D90 (one of just a lucky few in Canada, for another week or so).

The camera feels and functions pretty much the same way as the D80. It shoots amazing videos, but probably won't be replacing your camcorder anytime soon. You see, while you can shoot video with any of your favorite lenses, autofocus is disabled during the capture process. It's great for point-at-one-spot-and-shoot videos, but if you pan the camera and require re-focusing, you'll be doing it manually. Also, it has maximum file limit of 2GB, which means you can only capture 5 minutes at full HD resolution (but obviously more at lower resolutions).

Here's a video shot from the D90, on the plane taking off from SFO.

Click here to download:

DSC_0007-2.mov (46639 KB)

Posted by email from Patrick's posterous

By the way, I created this post from my email program, with the help of Posterous. I attached the 46Mb file, wrote the headline in the subject field, and typed the entry into the body. Then, I sent the the email to post@posterous.com, and Posterous took over from there. Check out the original posterous page, where the video was embedded inline, automatically. I may never use the Typepad UI again.

For those of you who can't sent 46Mb files through email, check out Loa PowerTools - a great little email utility that solves almost all the problems you encounter when sending emails. I've been using it for the last few months, and have yet to encounter a network where I could not send email.

Pitches That Didn't Suck

Last week, I attended YC Demo Days, and saw twenty great pitches. I had to laugh, however, when Paul Graham started off the day by asking us not to judge the presenters too harshly, because they were "just engineers that had been coached on how to present over the last two weeks". I've attended many a venture forum, and normally, I have to reach for copious amounts of caffeine - so hats off to the YC team for crew for a great day.

I don't really need to offer my opinions specifically on each of the presenting companies (you can read more about them at TechCrunch and Guy Kawasaki's blog - ignore the goofy pic of me). However, I'll offer my comments as to why these "kids" blew most veteran presenters out of the water:

• Short and tight presentations - Seven minutes each, to be exact. Most companies focused on showing off their killer features, as opposed to diving deep and explaining the technology. 
• Minimal use of PowerPoint slides and more use of live demos. You could see the crowd nodding, and hear them oohing and aahing when great features were shown. 
• Scripted, but no cheating - all of the companies scripted their demos - they had a person driving the computer, and others that presented. And even though some of them were a little nervous, none of them resorted to reading from cheat sheets.
• Passion, enthusiasm, credibility, and humility - it's kind of obvious that these would be endearing traits for presenters, but you wouldn't believe how often they come across as the exact opposite. If YC invests in these companies primarily because of the founders, I think Paul, Jessica and the rest of the YC team made great choices.
• Beta test information and early reviews - investors love the hear what companies are doing to confirm market acceptance. Bonus points - some companies even presented comparative metrics from the market leaders. 
• The right amount of aggressiveness - Paul had instructed his recruits to be aggressive and strike up conversations. Most people had no problem introducing themselves to Guy Kawasaki and some of the other star VCs in the room, but I was pleasantly surprised when they engaged me in conversation. I was in stealth mode (translation: I haven't done anything significant enough to be recognizable in the valley), so it would have been easy for them to ignore me. 

Congratulations to this very talented group of YC grads for making this far, and best of luck on the road ahead!

Your Pitch Sucks.

Drawing some inspiration from the You Suck at Photoshop series as well as the 3 pitches that I saw yesterday, I've decided that most presenters need some tough love. Here's why potential investors and advisors think you suck:

1. You start weak. You haven't rehearsed your opening line. Instead, you're nervous, try to be witty, and make a remark about the weather. Then, you make some impromptu introduction about yourself that is boring as hell. I'm already rolling my eyes and reaching for my Blackberry.
2. You ask a stupid question. Your audience is there to judge you, not to interact with you. So when you ask "do you ever have [problem x]?", you'll get a room of blank stares and head shaking.
3. You spent 5 minutes explaining why your team of unknown managers and coders from unimpressive organization is "world class".
4. Your PowerPoint was designed by a coder. 'nuff said.
5. You read every slide, word for word. And on top of that, you stuttered.
6. You don't know jack. You present the revenue projections and the valuations, but none of the numbers add up and you fumble the explanation. On top of that, your company is pre-revenue and you're looking for a huge valuation.
7. You sucked the life out of the room. Your nerves and the lack of rehearsals are catching up to you. When you tell us that you have the skills to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of products in a competitive market to Fortune 50 companies, we simply cannot believe you.
8. You think I suck because I don't love your business. Reality is, investors look at hundreds of businesses before they invest in one. Lose the attitude and up your game.

The solution is simple, really. You need the audience to fall in love with you in the first 30 seconds, so come out of the gates strong. Then, keep their interest for the next 9.5 minutes. If you're a person that's not comfortable in front of crowds, you need to practice 10x more than the other guy. Get a video camera and record yourself. Go to Demo.com and check out the best pitches, as well as the worst ones, and learn from both. Draw inspiration from Steve Jobs and Guy Kawasaki. Test the pitch in front of your friends and family instead of a group of people that might give you big money.

Just in case you think I'm the only that thinks your pitch sucks, I'm not - I've checked with the other guys in the room. So what are you waiting for? Fix your pitch!

Tripit.com: The Killer App For Travellers

I started planning a month-long family vacation this week, and like everything else I do these days, I started my research by looking at review sites on the net. In my opinion, Tripadvisor.com is still the best for reviews on just about anything travel related. I also like WestJet, Hertz and Expedia. But where's the glue that puts all of this stuff together? Up until now, I've resorted to entering the details of travel bookings into my calendar manually.

Tripit.com will change your life even if you travel just a bit. Here's how it works:

1. You email your confirmation emails from travel sites such as Expedia, Hertz and WestJet to plans@tripit.com. (it reads everything from flight confirmations to restaurant reservations)
2. Login to tripit.com, and make sure that the details were entered correctly.

It's just that simple. Tripit creates an itinerary, starting from the date of your outbound flight and ending on the date of your inbound flight. In-between, it adds your hotel reservations. (no more manual entries!!) Then, it automatically adds a Google Map detailing how to get from the airport to the hotel. You can also add other events, meetings and links manually.

Then, it feeds the information back to you in a slick web 2.0 interface, but more importantly, it publishes an iCal feed that you can plug back into your calendar. It also has a very cool mobile feature, where you can email commands such as "get schedule" or "get flight" and it will email the details back to you - no more digging for buried confirmation emails!

I love how much work the Tripit team has done to keep things simple. For instance, there's no sign-up page on website. You simply sign up by emailing a confirmation to Tripit.

There's a few things that I would like to see added to the feature set, but they're relatively small nits. The application is currently free to all users, and that's great for consumers - sometimes, you do get more than what you pay for. Tripit raised $5.1 million in April, and it will be interesting to see how they develop their revenue model. I, for one, hope they've already figured it out and stick around for a long, long time.

BarCamp Calgary 2: June 14 @ MRC

Mount Royal College will be hosting Calgary's 2nd BarCamp on Saturday, June 14th, from 10:30 to 3:30 - details here. This time, we're focusing on bringing the community together for some beer, lunch and snacks in a casual environment. We'll have breakout rooms, plenty of couches, and will even have Rock Band set up! (You better bring your A-game, I hear Sarah's been practicing hard).

As for the attendees, we're extended invitations to the various groups around town, and asked them to bring some people out - gaming and UX in particular, but all are invited. It's our hope that Calgary's most interesting entrepreneurs and technology experts will use BarCamp as the ultimate place to mingle.

We're also inviting some pretty interesting experts out, and think that they will make some pretty interesting presentations. But no matter - isn't the lobby the coolest place to hang out anyways?

Shopping for a PC at Best Buy or Future Shop: Now Even More Painful Than Using Windows.

I recently started working on a project which requires some doodling, so after much consternation, I decided to buy a Tablet PC. While my Mac would continue to serve as my primary machine, I needed a cheap and cheerful digital sketchbook.

I decided to drop into the local Best Buy, and asked to try out their only Tablet PC, the HP TX2000 series laptop. Pretty good machine for the price - around $1,000 - all I needed to know was whether the digitizer was pressure sensitive (press harder with the pen, and get a thicker/darker line). I had done some preliminary research on the web, but there were conflicting reports on this aspect of the machine.

There were a lot of sales reps standing around the computer department, not really doing much of anything, except socializing with each other. I asked one of them if I could get the digitizing pen for the tablet. He rolled his eyes and told me to use my finger. When I insisted, he dug up the pen and stood behind me, watching my every move as I stumbled around the Vista interface, checking to see whether the tablet was indeed pressure sensitive. He was frustrated that I pulled him away from chat time with the other reps, having to make sure I didn't steal the pen. So, when I couldn't figure it out and asked him, he just said "I don't know". I gave him back the pen, and his spirits immediately lifted. He hurriedly put the put back under lock-up. Then, he asked "so you're going to buy one, right?" Yea, right. And just in case you're thinking that this was some pimply-faced 16 year old, it wasn't. He was the "supervisor" of the computer department.

I was actually thinking of just buying it, taking it home, and figuring out it later. After all, these places carry price and satisfaction guarantees, right? However, the experience was so painful, I decided against that.

I left the store empty handed. Over the weekend, I spent a few hours doing some research on the tablet. Finally, after sifting through many pages of disinformation, I found my answer. (it is pressure sensitive, to 256 levels, btw). Now I'm ready to pounce.

Staples carries the HP tx2110ca for $1,004.96, but doesn't carry it at the store closest to my house. I called Future Shop (which was acquired by Best Buy in 2001) to see if they would match the price. After all, these guys have "Get it for less. Guaranteed" as a trademark. They carry an identical machine with a different model number: the HP tx2104ca - for $1,099.99 - a difference of about $95.

I asked nicely if they would match the price, given that it was pretty much the same machine. Maybe they wanted my business, I figured. Not only did they refuse, but they were actually quite rude about it - as if I was trying to pull a scam on them. After my experience at Best Buy, I don't know why I was expecting anything different.

So, back to the Staples website. 2 minutes after I got off the phone with Future Shop, I was the proud owner of a HP tx2110ca, saving myself any further frustrations of having to deal with either Best Buy or Future Shop employees. In the process, I also saved myself $95 plus taxes, and a bunch of gas money, since Staples ships for free.

Just in case you think I'm going off the deep end with consumer advocacy talk, think again. I'm just saying: buyer beware. Future Shop and Best Buy pour hundreds of millions of dollars into marketing and advertising, and recovers it by selling products for profit. To maintain higher margins, they hire marginal staff, and sell overpriced cables and warranties. This is old news.

Best Buy/Future Shop aren't the only companies with questionable practices. Companies like HP help support the deceptive marketing practices of Best Buy/Future Shop, by creating exclusive model numbers for each retailer. You can buy the exact same HP tx2000 series computers at a variety of retailers, however, you will never find Future Shop's tx2104ca at any other retailer. Thus, Future Shop will never have to price match on that unit. They win the argument in the fine print. Unfair? Yes. The only thing you can do about it? Your homework.

To close: a homework assignment. Try to figure out why HP has so many model numbers for such similar computers. link

STIRR Founders & Funders

NOTE: The following is cross-posted from www.stirr.ca, and is courtesy of STIRR Canada team member Sharon McIntyre. I was going to write a post summarizing the event, but Sharon has done a much better job than I ever would have . . .

On Thursday evening, Albertan tech startup founders, funders, and emerging young guns filled the main floor of Calgary's Bonterra Trattoria restaurant at STIRR Canada's kick-off Founders & Funders Dinner event. Five hours later, after some great networking and facilitated dinner table conversations, people were still buzzing.

A young startup founder remarked: "I can't believe the caliber of people I just got to talk with or the amount I learned before dessert came. This has been the most productive tech event I've been to in Calgary."

Participating companies included: Active Conversion, Broadramp, Calgary Scientific, Cambrian House, Cognera, CoolIT, Coril Holdings, Cornerstone Technologies, Datagardens, DirectVoxx, Dynastream, eSchedule, GamesCafe, iNovia Capital, Intervera, Loa Corporation, Mobovivo, Octane Venture Partners, Ph03nix New Media, Preo Software, Psyko Audio Labs ... ...  Renoworks, Shopster, SpatialQ, StockVantage, StumbleUpon, Techvibes, Tynt, and Xtreme Technologies.

Calgary native, and StumbleUpon co-founder, Garrett Camp, talked about the ups and downs of his friends-and-family funded early startup days and how he ultimately moved to Silicon Valley to be closer to his advisors. He also revealed that his first investor was a StumbleUpon user from the Valley who simply contacted him by email.

A common theme revolved around how important "retaining the right people" is to creating success. Discussions included: giving up a substantial amount of equity to attract a co-founder, asking potential employees how much salary vs. stock they wanted to gauge their propensity for risk; and a founder's preference to hire equity-only team members (whether you can self-fund the startup or not).

Here are a few conversation snippets from the evening:

"How are we gonna reach the young guns, the 'Garrett Camps' in their dorm rooms right now?" Answer back: "Reach them at university. Do free beer and pizza events on campus and get them to connect to the people here tonight."

"Geography doesn't matter, it's wherever the best ideas are."

"This kind of event is exactly what we need. A way to connect under-the-radar startups with people who can help them. That's what's been missing."

"Tech isn't only about pure software development. We have to ensure we include tech-driven startup innovation, like some of the companies we see here at our table tonight."

A selection of images from the event:

(below) Garrett Camp is introduced by Pat Lor

Allan MacKenzie, Octane Venture Partners, (below, top right) engages his table

 

(below) Pat Lor, formerly of iStockphoto and STIRR Canada co-founder, welcomes attendees

 

(below, left) Claudia Moore, Material Insight President and STIRR Canada co-founder makes a point

 

(below) Cam Linke of Techvibes (striped shirt) and MJ Sikorsky of Cambrian House (yellow and green t-shirt) dive into a discussion

 

 

 

Drama at DemoCamp!!

We have a saboteur - somebody out to destroy all the good things that DemoCampCalgary is trying to create. When the DemoCamp organizers showed up at Melrose on Tuesday night, the manager told us that someone had called to cancel the event booking. He told us that he didn't have anyone to staff the room we were booked in, and there was a construction crew in there as well. After much consternation, they managed to get us into the second level, which wasn't as ideal as the theatre on the lower level.

It was probably just a simple understanding, but wouldn't life be more exciting if we really did have a mole in the midst? However, rest assured that having lived through that experience once, we don't ever plan on letting it happen again. We'll be calling in to confirm our reservations from here on in!

So, apologies to everyone for a less than optimal experience. Then again, there were lots of smiles and some great discussions in the crowd - could it have anything to do with the beverages?

After a late start, the audience of 50 or so attendees saw 4 company presentations and one special project presentation. First, the companies:

• Mob4Hire: Paul Poutanen presented this crowdsourced platform for testing mobile applications. Participants from every region throughout the world are encouraged to register the model of their phone, their location, and their service provider. Developers of mobile applications can tap into the crowd and seek testing on specific phones in specific locales on specific carriers, or test their applications across the entire Mob4Hire network.


• Aviary: I presented Aviary, an outrageously cool set of online design applications. Think Photoshop, Illustrator and 14 other applications, all of them working within your browser - no downloads required. The system tracks every version that is saved, and allows sharing of source files - allowing the community to collaborate on design projects with ease. Drop me a line if you'd like a beta invite.

• Xtreme Technologies: Chris Becker presented the XLink, a cellular phone gateway that allows you to answer cellphone calls on your home phone. The device connects to your cellphone through bluetooth, and has an output jack that you plug your home phone system into. Calls to your cellphone will ring through to your home system whenever your cell is within bluetooth range of the XLink. It allows you to use all those unlimited evenings and weekends minutes while your cellphone is charging. If you'd like to try it out, go to their online store and type "barcamp" into the coupon code field for 20% off.
   
• Ph03nixNewMedia: Jon Lam presented "Curse of the Pharoah", a casual game which is currently hosted on Big Fish Games. It was an instant success, and Big Fish promptly ordered up two more titles.
   

Matt Beck, a student from the University of Calgary presented Alberta's entry in the Solar Decathlon. Along with students from MRC and SAIT, the team is the first-ever Western Canadian team to gain entry into this international competition. They must compete in 10 separate contests, from designing and building a solar home, to creating enough energy to power an electric vehicle for a day. The competition will be held in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 2009.