Author: Lynne

When the Press Gets Ugly

Hurrah for John Crumpacker’s article in the SF Chronicle today on the “ugly press” at the Olympics. It’s nice to see good people in the press take others in the press to task when they act badly, and tell them to act like journalists – not badmouths.

My family watched the opening ceremonies broadcast last Friday, and we were very annoyed at the rude comments about countries marching in the Olympics by the so-called press commentators. They displayed a willful ignorance about world history. When they had to read some piece of information gathered for them about a particular country, the male commentator would say it with a smirk and a laugh, as if it was a joke. It was just plain annoying.

Momma, Don’t Let Your Kids Grow Up to Be Programmers

Well, with all the Olympics fun, forgot to mention that the CS major percentage has dropped again a few weeks back. At the same time, 25% of 18-34 age group now watch videos on the web. Very big growth, don’t you think?

Of course, who will keep this momentum going? Don’t we need creative young people to keep up with innovation? I know that people often like to think everything that we need has been invented, but this convenient mindset can be misleading.

In 1904, physics was considered a very sedate and settled field. Then Einstein published a series of papers in 1905 on special and general relativity, and also set into motion the new fields of quantum mechanics and modern statistical mechanics. Modern physics was born.

The international physics community has set aside 2005 as the World Year of Physics as a tribute to Einstein’s centennial. Of course, I follow these things since I have a physics degree myself. But maybe everyone else should take a minute and think about how in a matter of a year the world can change forever.

Carry the Torch and Flag – and Bring the Digital Camera

I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but not only were the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympic Games in Athens inspiring as always (I’m a student of Greek myth and legend), but the athletes marching proudly about the Olympic stadium were also using small digital cameras to take photos and clips from their own personal perspective.

What an amazing thing – as 4.5 billion people watched these athletes prepare to compete, they were taking photos and video of each other and us!

IPO Fatigue? Watch PDI!

“Forget Google. The one to watch is PDI.” ExecProducer CEO William Jolitz talks about the “other IPO” happening soon right here in Silicon Valley – the PDI Dreamworks debut. One digital media success like Pixar is an anomaly. But are two digital media successes the start of Silicon Hollywood

?

Follow the money story from start to pay off, the excitement, the risk, and how consumer electronics, Sony’s “iPOD killer” and 3G fit in here. Join William Jolitz, ExecProducer CEO on his private channel William Jolitz on ExecProducer MVP as he discusses IPO Fatigue? Watch PDI!

Oh, Where, Oh Where Has My Little AVI Gone…

Revisiting the Pew Internet study (“Content Creation“) discussing online content creation by Internet users (Mar-May 2003), it’s amusing to see how much things have changed in a year.

According to the Pew study released February of 2004 (and to be fair, the study took one year to assemble, analyze the data and release the report, so it’s understandably a bit outdated) content creators use very little digital media. It’s not popular. Right? Uhh, not anymore.

Look how far we’ve gone. Photo sharing has become far more popular. This is due to two factors – the increasing size of photos (megapixel) precludes easy mailing from person-to-person, but with new photo sites placement on one site offers convenient storage, and now a lot of people can look, when before only a few could. And even better – tools are not required for anyone to use them – it’s simply an upload.

However, video is an entirely different area. I see two different conflicting trends.

ExecProducer CTO Problem and Solution Video Pitch

So the CEO is involved in SDForum, and they like to put together “speeddate” pitches, where everyone pitches to everyone else and then critiques them. But then you go home and forget what you said and what they said and don’t get anything out of that speeddate but a hangover…
So I did my speeddate pitch for them, but since I’m not an SDForum member, I did a video pitch instead. Like it? I did it today. And I don’t have to worry about forgetting my pitch – because it’s right here. Oh, and it’s also an anniversary gift for my husband – 19 years yesterday, 3 kids, and lots of companies. He just loves pitches. 🙂

Fun Friday – Google and that analyst movie

Mike Langberg added his two cents into my recent commentary (“Lights, Camera,…No Sergey, the camera is this way!“):

“Lynne: Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Maybe you can offer Google some pointers for any future videos. They could sure use your help.”

Sure thing. I’ve got a camera! I’ll make them look real nice and bright and wholesome. That “shadows” stuff I’ll save for their backers – VC’s love the Brando “Godfather” style, and look alot better with thin ties.

Term Memory Patent Parchment Looks Lovely and Feels Great!

OK. I know the patent attorney said I got the patent grant (“Term Addressable Memory of an Accelerator System and Method“) a while ago, but it really is different when you actually hold it in your hand! I was so excited that I told Vint Cerf about it and ever gracious, he said “congratulations, Lynne – persistence counts!” Means a great deal to me to hear that from the “Father of the Internet”.

It’s my 2nd parchment but there’s more in the queue. This patent relates to the limits found in the original design for InterProphet discussed in the SiliconTCP paper I put together earlier this year. Work on this patent was done after went into a low-key mode because of a lack of commitment to it as private venture. But just because it’s easy to bet against someone knowing that life isn’t fair, that doesn’t mean it’s right. Karma rules!

I’m happy to keep my word and execute it well. It just takes a bit more time to make it to shore when the winds are set against you. But winds shift, and so do trends.

Lights, Camera,…No Sergey, the camera is this way!

Everyone’s talking Google – and Google decided to make a roadshow movie. But what do the critics say?

Mike Langberg of the San Jose Mercury News wasn’t impressed. He gave it a thumbs down. In his article “Investors get few details from Google’s somber video” on Saturday, he had this priceless critique:

“…The lighting was so bad in some shots that faces were in shadow. There was no bouncy background music. The PowerPoint slides interspersed among the talking heads weren’t animated. And the four never walked around or did anything more dynamic than gesture with both hands.”

Contrast that with the instant biz video I did for our partners at MinutePitch to inaugurate their service. It has jazzy music and good lighting and all that, and I used a *Canon A60* camara and ordinary lights and just emailed the clips and went out to my Forum for Women Entrepreneurs lunch – it was on the web and had been viewed by the time I got to Bucks in Woodside from Los Gatos. Gee, even my kids use A60’s with video clip for their own movies, and they don’t have a movie crew! And I did better than Google did? Wow!