As we get to the end of another month, I see more tweets from people asking for suggestions on what cool content they can #flattr before their “monthly allocations” get allocated and tick over.

While I often tweet in response, I can only fit 2-3 suggestions in 140 chars, so I thought to start a list — and if I can stay organized enough, I’ll try to highlight my favorite “things” each month from now on.

Of course I’d also love to hear from you about what content you’ve found to flattr and if there’s anything you’d want to recommend in turn. So let me know what you think in the comments below, please.

(NB: If you’re not yet a Flattr user and/or don’t know what I’m going on about, check out the video here or at the home page and sign up! If you know about it but remain unconvinced let me know that too and maybe I’ll do a “What I like about Flattr” post, since there are so many things I could cover on that topic.)

So with all of that said, here’s my list if you’re looking for more stuff to flattr in October.  This isn’t in any particular order and spans from the “just for fun” to “respect” to “super cool and useful” — and everything in between, with many being all of the above.

• MrDoob: You can flattr most of his projects and “experiments” , but my favorite is ball pool (just for fun)
• Fluck: Some very cool photography and I never get tired of looking at some of the portraits in the prison chess or any of the NYC in HDR sets
• Monocubed: More stuff for fun (love all the talent that can be displayed online), I liked ragdroid, Galactic Inbox (which some of you have surely seen) and london cycle hire real time map
• MattMurray: In a world getting overtaken by short form (twitter, tumblr, posterous), I love that there’s a bonafide blog post here every single day
• TomThrop: I think Tom and Matt (above) are friends, and again… respect.
• Tran|Script: To be honest it took me a while to work out what OER (main topic of this blog) meant, but this is why I love the web and Flattr: to help me learn and discover things I might not have otherwise come across.  And now that I know the acronym it’s obviously a worthy subject area. There’s quality writing here and also the occasional non-OER post, for example convincing David Lowery (of Cracker and Camper van Beethoven) to use Flattr too.
• Techdirt: As “online news” becomes more frantic (and really sometimes only slightly more researched than 140 char tweets), Techdirt is tops for true journalism, research and in-depth analyses on a variety of tech-related topics.  For example, here’s a timely piece for this weekend re: halloween candy, and here’s another piece re: one of everyone’s all-time favorite songs happy birthday
• Breadpig: How can you not love this site and everything it stands for?  Case in point: If you hadn’t heard, their community/users recently succeeded with a campaign to take over the Reddit logo which is pretty darn cool
• rob_sheridan: Of course I was a Nine Inch Nails fan (don’t get me started).  Rob Sheridan has started putting flattr buttons on some of his photography collections and other things… what more do I have to say?
• taz.de: One of Germany’s largest daily newspapers using flattr buttons on every single one of their stories and articles.  That. So. Rocks. Quality mainstream journalism here such as this piece on privatization of water. (Thank you Google translate, and I can’t wait until I can flattr a UK paper’s online site).
• SparkleShare: You like Dropbox?  (Who doesn’t?) You like open source? (Who doesn’t?) Check out SparkleShare, and give it a flattr because it’s a damn fine idea.
• TheStyleScout: I keep looking and looking (not for myself!) because I just know I’m going to spot one of my fellow @whitebearyard‘ers here
• phil aka Lightweight Outdoors: Always nice to sometimes think not just about bits and bytes (or valuations and liquidation preferences), but to consider journeying into the great outdoors.
• leethal: So, you have a new ground-breaking web service.  You’re going for world domination.  What’s the best way to crack the US market?  Early-adopters? Techies? Puh-lease…! Crafters rule… and happen to be kick-ass evangelists!  Check this out
• kpwerker: leethal’s not the only one.  Take a look at kpwerker’s stuff — and you’ll learn that obviously crafters and technies are not mutually exclusive!

So what do you think?  What do you see on here that you like or what did I miss?

Fortunately, I was also genuinely impressed at the calibre of cold-pitches (turn up and just pitch cold without slides in 1 minute or less).  The group last night was comprised of confident, ambitious and keen entrepreneurs; such a great vibe.

All of this is of course a testament to @techhub, which was established expressly for these types of events and in order to bring various consituents of the tech community together.  It’s something we also strive to do (albeit on a smaller scale) here at White Bear Yard, but I really commend @evarley and the @techhub sponsors for pulling it off with flying colours; job well done!

Overview

@TCEurope had promoted the event for a few weeks, and from my point of view the format was very successful.  Everyone who had purchased a ticket and showed up had the opportunity to submit a 1-2 line description of their startup (or project idea) that they wanted to pitch. All of these were vetted very quickly by the 5 judges to come up with 30 who would each pitch for 1 minute at a time.

Following those 1 minute pitches and another conference between judges, 7 were nominated (along with another 3 who were part of a previous UKTI pitching clinic) to pitch for a further 3 minutes each and then 3 final winners selected.

Suggestions

Perhaps one reason I was so impressed with the format is because I was initially skeptical.  I didn’t think we’d be able to hear more than 10 or so pitches, I figured people would run long/over their time, and I thought we just wouldn’t be able to maintain a good pace.  However, I was pleasantly surprised and impressed that most people kept their pitches to the 1 minute (thanks to great time-keeping by @mikebutcher) — or even less in some cases, which helped to compensate for the time lost between pitches during handovers.

Since the list of pitches/people was only deciuded just before the start of the event, it wasn’t possible to have a prepared list or agenda/order regarding who was up next, but that definitely would have been helpful. Perhaps in future (as ws done for the 3 minute pitches), Mike can project the full list of presenters (or next 5) on screen so that people know when they’re next and can queue up. Another alternative would be to use twitter (since wifi was obviously in good order and quite a fair number of attendees were tweeting and making notes using the #tcbattle hashtag anyway).

The other benefit of this would be that audience members could actually see the company/project name spelled out along with a URL or twitter handle or other identifying information. I know that along with other judges and attendees that there were more than a few occasions when we weren’t exactly sure what the company name was.

Apart from that, I overheard some attendees saying afterwards that it was quite difficult to hear the pitches from the back of the room and that the lack of aircon was definitely a force, but from where we were sat as judges (lucky us!) everything was fine.

Recap

While the judges initially selected 30 teams to present 1 minute pitches, because things seemed to be going so well, we were all in agremeent (along with Mike and the rest of the audience) that it made sense to let the other 10 or so “applicants” do a 1 liner/sentence “intro” (shy of a pitch in that amount of time) as well. So in total, there were 30 1 minute pitches, 12 additional 1 sentence introductions and then 9 more 3 minute pitches. Here’s my recap with full apologies for any incorrect company names that I might have misheard/understood [note suggestion above] as well as apologies if I misunderstood the actual proposition, offering or description. Note: If anyone wants to comment or contact me with corrections/edits or URLs/twitter IDs where missing I’d be more than happy to update the following –

1. Hullomail: instant voice messaging
2. DADapp: organizing, finding and reusing digital media
3. Pzyche: real-time visitor intelligence for online gaming
4. Calaboard (@calameda)* = 1st place winner; augmented reality video conferencing
5. Crowdscanner*: event ice-breaker/iPhone app
6. TRData: Bloomberg for emerging markets
7. Duedil (@Duedil_app)* = 2nd place winner; people reputation system
8. AdAvengers (@adavengers): making display-ads simpler
9. MyArt: creativity marketplace (for collaboration and sharing)
10. YourNextRead: book recommendation discovery and sharing
11. MindQuilt*:  enterprise knowledgement management platform
12. Me-stars*: social casual games for mobile
13. Whaddado: social bookmarking platform for events, gigs, happenings
14. Logentries: collect, visualize and store log data
15. Privilink: message and connect with people as easily as PayPal for payments
16. OneLeep (@oneleep)*: pay to contact anyone (who sets a price on contacting them with %age going to charity)
17. Nsyght: social search
18. Eclectica: white label bookstore platform
19. TheNudge: location based service for recommendatiobs
20. Geomium (@geomium)* = 3rd place winner; mobile location based “what’s going on around you”
21. Pridesnapz (@PrideSnapz): mobile penny auctions and group buying
22. Future Content Lab: last.fm for content, matching content with transactions/commerce
23. Getyoo (@Getyoo): device for exchanging digital information, leaflets, PDFs, files
24. Mojo: mobile airline live pricing database
25. Fubles: eBay for matching players, pitches, games
26. FaceValue: social commerce (buy and sell via social networks)
27. OnePage (@myonepage): business cards in the cloud
28. Subsify (@subsify): easy online payments (for SME/startups)
29. Qhub: Q&A website platform for whitelabel
30. Psonar: music in the cloud
31. [ ]: graffiti for events
32. Homemaker: Basecamp for families
33. Dress2Press: drag and drop ecommerce items (fashion/clothes) onto photos
34. [ ]: open source trust maps
35. Hipsnip (@hipsnip): connecting real and online worlds
36. Timeline-X.com: records history of site visitors
37. OxygenOnline: content production company
38. E-Export: manage logistics of import/export in/out of Brazil
39. 28msec: XQuery in the cloud
40. MoneyDashboard: Mint.com for UK
41. SIPcast.me: converts SIP phone calls to webcasts
42. HRLocker: HR software
43. GourmetOrigins*: foodies and location/destinations
44. Prospectvision*: sales and lead gen via behavioural analysis

* Companies who were selected to give 3 minute pitches

Conclusions

Again from my point of view — interested in meeting and hearing about very early stage teams, ideas, projects and companies — the event was ideal and well-executed.  I don’t have access to the registration or attendee list, but my own quick scans showed that it was a fantastic turnout of entrepeneurs *and* investors or corporate representatives — which is ideal for everyone involved.  Mike tweeted this morning that there were over 200 attendees, and I personally saw representatives from Google Corporate Development, Pearson, Peacock Fund, Advent Venture Partners, Balderton Capital, Dawn Capital, Eden Ventures (which was a sponsor), m8 capital (another sponsor), Neuhaus Partners, PROFounders Fund,  and of course @robertdighero and myself from @whitebearyard.

What a great turnout and event all around.  I hope to have the chance to participate in future ones.  You may ask if there were any pitches that I would deem as “investable”, and to be fair, 1 or even 3 minutes is not enough on which to base that decision.  However, for whatever it’s worth, I had made notes of at least 11-12 different teams that I’d like to learn more about — whether for existing investee companies/projects and collaboration or for potentially working more closely with.  That’s effectively 25% of teams seen, so clearly a great sign.

Well done and congratulations to all of those who pitched in far from the easiest setting or environment — and again to @techhub and @TCEurope for a great event.

Don’t patronize me

On the first point, I don’t want someone to cut me some slack or “give me a chance” just because I’m a woman. I don’t want a hand-out, I don’t want to be patronized. I want to be recognized and respected because of what I’m capable of doing and achieving. If someone wants me on their team strictly because I’m a woman, then there’s probably something amiss in that intention. So don’t patronize me, please.

It works both ways — It’s not pleasant (or wise) if someone shuts a door on me strictly because I’m a woman, but I also don’t want the door opened only because I am.

Women need to get rid of the crutch and step it up

On the second point, I don’t think we should just ask men for more opportunities. I think instead we need to get more women to step it up and if they are seeking opportunities in tech (and not getting them), I think they should speak up or look harder. I have a computer science degree and have worked in technology companies my whole career, so I’ve worked mostly with men. I currently work in the @whitebearyard office space with a lot of men over 2 floors. I’m quite certain that each one of them (or at least most of them) are acutely aware whenever there is a woman in the office. Full stop. They know if a woman enters the office, steps into the floor or is here for a meeting. In this setting, women get a lot more attention than “just another guy”. And if a woman in this setting cannot make a positive impression or assert her value as a prospective vendor, partner, employee/consultant, then maybe she’s actually not qualified or capable enough – or not wanting it. All of these guys (and others that I know and work with) would love to work with more women. Most of them talk about the value and advantage to their team which would come from added diversity for product design, team dynamics, communication and emotional intelligence. They’re not opposed to hiring women and some would prefer evenly-qualified female candidates to male ones, but they (and I) don’t often see enough to choose from.

Evidence of lack of supply, but not demand

Here are just some recent data points as to why I believe it’s more of a “supply side” issue rather than a demand one.  As noted above, I don’t think most men in tech are averse to working with more women (quite the contrary), but I don’t see enough women putting themselves forward or taking advantage of opportunities available.

• We recently co-hosted First Round Capital Volcano office hours in our offices @whitebearyard. While you could argue the sample size was quite small (it was held with only 1 day’s notice on a weekend), it was widely publicized via First Round’s network and on TechCrunch.  Still, out of the nearly 60 people who turned up to meet with a promiment US VC, only 4 of them were women (just under 7%).

• I asked Mike Butcher about the submissions he received for the recent TechCrunch Europe GeekNRolla startup competition. #gknr was obviously widely publicized by TechCrunch and on Twitter and throughout the European tech community. The startup competition was promoted as an opportunity to launch a new company or product at a major event. Based on the stats Mike shared with me, out of 83 initial entries received by the first deadline, only 2 were led by women (2.4%).

• Out of our deal flow data base (tracking the number of teams/companies we’ve met with who were seeking financing or introductions over the last 9 months), there are 492 teams/projects/companies, 9 of which were led or co-led by women (less than 2%).

• Recently one of the most well known early stage VCs in the US, Union Square Ventures, started recruiting for 2 new job positions – an analyst and a General Manager. They received over 600 applications/expressions of interest but only 10% from women.

Within tech, I don’t think we need to give more women a chance; I think we need to tell more women to go for it — if they want it.

Mike Butcher, editor of TechCrunch Europe goes out of his way to feature women in his events. Of the 50 total number of speakers who took the stage during #gknr, 9 were female, which is nearly 20%. Take away the startup presenters (low number of women-led applicants already noted above) and women represented 25% — 1 out of every 4 – of Mike’s invited speakers. Mike is clearly a supporter of “women in tech” and more conscious of gender im/balances than most, but even generally from what I see tech companies, investors, event organizers and ecosystem catalysts want to see, promote and feature more women.

Go for it, but make sure you want it and deserve it

Are there really women out there who want access and think they do not get it because they’re a woman? If so, I would encourage that you should look at other factors that might be contributing such as your CV, skills background, working style, references, or communication/presentation skills. It might just be too easy to say “oh it’s because I’m a woman”, and that will actually hinder you from improving areas in need of development. Stop making excuses and get on with it. All the men I know are looking out for women to join their teams. But if you’re not good enough, you might just not be good enough. Stop using the woman thing as a crutch and work on what needs to be done in order to break-through. I want to change the call to action from asking men to give us a chance to asking women to step it up and make sure you’re making it known if you want to be in tech/business — and will be successful in it. 

Coming up next (hopefully within this week): Part II: How “tech” compares to other industries…

While I’m sure it’s always been discussed, all of a sudden these past couple of weeks it seems not a day goes by without another blog post or article (New York Times, Fast Company, HuffPo, TechCrunch) lamenting the fact that there are “not enough women in tech”.

I ignored most and then got very agitated by some of them, but resisted writing or publicly saying anything in response because it wouldn’t really be very politically correct to dispute any of it, now would it?  However, I don’t have an issue with having more women in tech, and I generally agree that it would improve some products, companies, businesses and achievements.  So I don’t think there shouldn’t be more women in tech, I’m just not sure there’s an actual problem with our current progress — given where the industry has come from and the fact that tech as an industry is better than most when it comes to gender neutrality and having a merit-based ecosystem.  Additionally, I don’t understand why we’re all moaning about it so much and blaming men or the “institutions” instead of just getting down to business and doing more or performing better.

The first reason I get prickled about this “issue” is because I think that if I can do it – be a woman in tech – then there should be no reason why any other person [woman] can’t.  So I’m not sure there is a systemic problem, or if there is any it is more class and socioeconomic- than it is gender-related.  Along with quite a few female colleagues and friends of mine in this industry, I think we exemplify the fact that if you want it, work for it, and are credible and capable, you can do whatever you want to do.  Sure there will be setbacks and it may not be a walk in the park, but it isn’t for all men either.  Bottom line: It can be done, so let’s stop whining about it and just get on with it.

Another reason this “issue” or discussion bothers me is because I don’t think of myself as a woman in tech.  I prefer to think of or characterize myself instead as an “angel investor in tech”, “advisor”, “product person”, “business development lead” or something more functionally descriptive and to my mind, relevant.

The fact that I am a woman is about as pertinent [to me and what I do for work] as the other purely descriptive (non-merit based) facets of my physical make-up, for example, I’m also 5’6” (167.6 cms), with black hair, of Chinese descent, born in the States — and female.

Those physical or demographic points about me relate to another reason why I think I am immune (if not annoyed) by the women in tech thing.  As a double minority (as far as the US and UK are considered) and someone who grew up as a Chinese girl/woman in the US, I’ve always been more aware of my ethnic minority status than my gender minority within school, classrooms, or work places.  I’ve become more conditioned to being sensitive to whether or not I’m standing out (or not being seen) because I look foreign, potentially non-English speaking and simply not typical.  I’ve been asked why “we don’t all just know karate” (as if it was an innate skill from birth), greeted in Japanese, called an egg roll, and countless other ignorant slights which makes “worrying about being a woman” completely pointless.

With all of that said, I can’t help but be preoccupied by this whole “woman thing” over the last few weeks, so to try and get it all out of my head I’m attempting to synthesize my reactions and points of irritation into some (hopefully) logical counterpoints and constructive comments which I’ll post in separate parts (including Part I: supply vs demand, hopefully Part II: tech as compared to other industries (including traditional IT) , suggestions for younger women wanting to get into tech/business, etc.,) over the next week or so.  I can only imagine what reactions I’ll get, but before any of that starts, please let me establish that I don’t mean to offend anyone or discount any hurdles or hardships they may have had.  I speak from my own experiences and perspective and offer, as ever, my humble opinion.  I’m not against women in tech (of course not; don’t be daft)… I’m just against whining about it and prefer we just get on with it and prove our merits with our achievements and success.

As Fred knows (despite and also because of his energetic comments on an earlier post of mine), I have the utmost respect for him and his years’ of investment experience which far exceeds mine.  However, while I credit his intention to tell entrepreneurs what they don’t need to succumb to if they’re simply being interrogated for the sake of it (or as part of a VC power play/meeting), I must respectfully disagree with his advice of generally not providing the information.

Perhaps I misinterpret his advice — and I see Fred has clarified following Hacker News’ remarks that he meant entrepreneurs should simply be selective in disclosing the information (and not *never* disclose it as the title actually states), but frankly I still think the advice isn’t practical for several reasons.

Regarding the first point about cash position and when you’re running out of money, this is indeed a tough and potentially awkward issue, and I’d agree that in the very first meeting it’s probably not going to score you many points nor leverage if you’re already in debt and out of cash for payroll.  However, if that is indeed the situation then I’m only one meeting or phone call away from finding it out anyway, so why spin it or misrepresent the facts?  I think an entrepreneur really needs to be very upfront about this.  If I were to be told in a first meeting the cash position was fine, but then learned through the course of further dialog that in fact this had been misrepresented, I would be forced to call into question anything else the entpreneur ever said !  Not a great sign.  It’s basically lying.  Call it spin if you want, but then why are you spinning this very crucial matter?

In turn, what I can offer on my part is that I won’t rule out investing in something that is out of cash (I’ve done it before and will do it again).  Much more important (and far more impressive) to me would be to tell me the truth of the situation and also the circumstances behind it.  For example, are you out of cash because you were too obsessive about your product and literally couldn’t or didn’t manage your cash responsibly?  Or is it because you underestimated the cost of your development and freelancers?  Or because your user acquisition plan was overly-optimistic?  Or maybe because when you got your last round you had an investor who said they’d be supportive and bridge if needed, but when the markets collapsed they pulled out?  There’s a reason for the current state of affairs and I’m more interested in that rather than some spin that’s going to start us off with untruths.

Regarding Fred’s second point about what other investors you’re talking to, firstly, as naive as it may sound, I truly believe that the VC community should work more closely together anyway.  I don’t think its efficient or ideal that VCs operate in silos and may be effectively offering deals/terms in absence of talking to other prospective co-investors, competitors, partners and/or people who may also be looking to value the same deal.

Because of my first point, I personally always try to “compare notes” with other investors about a deal or opportunity that is “going around”.  I’m not proferring any confidential information nor am I leaking anything, but I simply like to know what other smart people think of a specific opportunity, team, or executional plan.  In the course of doing that, I’m hopefully going to find out who else is interested (which is a good testament or reflective of other factors) and who’s in discussions with the same team or not.  So if I ask an entrepreneur who else they’re talking to (which as other commenters have noted I and others almost always do), I’m asking because I’m curious and that will outline who I might do some “comparing of notes” with, who I might be able to partner and syndicate with, but also because frankly I want to see how upfront the entrepreneur is.

Honestly, if an entrepreneur were to respond back with Fred’s suggested “We are talking to a selected number of investors who we feel understand this space and are getting good engagement right now”… I would seriously struggle not to furrow my brow with a “wtf” expression and wonder what exactly they’re trying to hide, for example, Does this mean they’re not talking to anyone?  Are they afraid to admit that no one else is interested? Are they thinking that’s how they can respond to a question directed with good intentions of fact-finding and I’ll move on?  Are they implying they have so many active discussions underway that they don’t need to tell me or be honest with me?  In that case, I’ll probably leave them to it.

And regarding the last point about cap table and last round valuation, I really don’t know why an entpreneur should hide this either.  Again, I’m only going to ask this if I’m genuinely interested and/or trying to consider what my possible position could be — and with whom else I’d be working and associated.  Trust me, if I’m not interested I won’t bother asking just for the hell of it, because at that point, I’m instead just trying to wrap up the meeting.  So if I’m asking, I’m genuinely curious.  And if I’m asking, interested and curious, I’m hoping for a follow-up meeting.  I’m going to find out eventually, so why are we drawing things out?  Why would an entpreneur want to hide this from me or give me an evasive answer?  I will be forced to wonder Is it because they don’t know?  Were they not paying attention?  Is this not important to them?  Do they have an investor who is now a convicted felon? Did they give away too much equity to their friends and family?  These things are all very crucial data points.  Much much better for me to know upfront than to have to dig/find it out in subsequent meetings and then call into question why the entrepreneur was not upfront when I asked in the first place.  And to be really honest, if an entrepreneur is not wanting to respond to very reasonable and direct questions like these, I’m probably not going to be inclined to sit through many more meetings of begging for the information.

Bottom line, as with any interpersonal/direct exchange, most of the discussion and question-and-answer dynamic is actually to gauge *how* one answers a question.  As in a lot of other cases, there is not any right or wrong answer to the questions, but if someone were to try to evade a question of mine with lines like “Management own XX% and we have carefully budgeted our options requirement and feel another YY% will take us through the next 24 months of company building”, I’d take serious note.  If they genuinely don’t want to share the straight answer, I’d prefer they just tell me why they don’t want to share it.  And also, if that’s the way they really try to talk in a meeting, it’s just not my style … It’s too sales-y, too evasive, and frankly too bullshitty (word?)

I understand Fred’s point that disclosing this information may affect your negotiation position and leverage, but frankly you’re already sitting in a meeting with a VC, so it’s already clear where the most leverage lies.  I want to talk to people who want to work with me, and I know it’s a sales pitch on both sides and a process to get to know each other, but evasive answers don’t help that along.

My view was that Twitter was full of so much random noise, mostly utter crap, so why should I contribute to it?  I also felt it was an incestuous circle of people tweeting things back and forth with their friends and existing contacts.  And I certainly didn’t care about what those people were eating for breakfast, what sunrises they were seeing, dreams they’d had the night before, when they were going to bed, on and on and on (you can’t imagine how many things I really didn’t care about).

But then I decided to give it a try.

I decided I would not tweet “random crap” (mostly) and even committed not to tweet song lyrics (which is seriously such a temptation!) and I’ve slowly started to realise a few things.  Thought it would be worth noting them down before I become  a complete convert (god help me) and forget what it was that I used to resist.  Here’s what I’ve realised and started to appreciate:

1. It’s what you make of it. Like anything else (and certainly any other communication medium), it is entirely what you make of it.  If you want to follow what people are eating for breakfast and offer them the same in return, you can do only that.  If you want to see what news items people are consuming, you can do that.  If you want to find new music, bands or follow gigs, you can do that too.

For me I use it to ping/draw attention to news items/blog posts that I like and feel are worth other people seeing [namely entrepreneurs and others in the tech community].  So my modus operandi is simply to “pass things along” or spread the word.  I know none of my tweets have been so earth shattering that they are “must reads” and that no one would really be missing out if they happened not to see a tweet of mine, but all the same, I’d like to think at least occasionally 1 or 2 people thought “interesting!” in response, and that’s good enough for me.

In this vein, I’ve also realised that Twitter has replaced a bit of what I used to do with IM/Skype chat.  Much of my Skype chat activity is actually pinging URLs/stories or snippets to friends on my contact list in order to gauge their reactions or impressions — and converse.  Now I can “broadcast” that with one tweet … although to have a fulfilling conversation and get their honest reactions I do still send a ping on Skype chat.

2. Twitter is valuable and useful [for now] because it’s still relatively small. While this might be debated, Twitter is still in its early stages (relative to other more established modes of communication such as email, Facebook messages, blogs, etc)  Even though some would argue that it’s already gained critical mass with celebs involved and appearances on Oprah, I would still point to how relatively speaking it’s a self-selecting twitterverse (recently highlighted in the Prospect magazine poll) and that as a result most active participants feel an inherent “connection” or familiarity with others on Twitter — simply because they’re there (as liberally-minded early adopters, somewhat engaged in social media, follow the same person, or what have you).  A result of this is that it’s still manageable to filter out noise, spam and bots.  Facebook is past this point, and obviously so is email.  Twitter will eventually fall to the same “critical mass” and noise,… and will diminish in value as a result.

3. The ecosystem is more valuable than Twitter itself. As a result of the point above, Twitter (as an ecosystem or “protocol”) is going to need third party apps, utilities and methods to filter out the spam and noise.  I’d tweeted last week arguing that the ecosystem is actually quite vulnerable to Twitter itself, but even so at some level there will need to be applications and utilities that are necessary to manage Twitter, clean it, mine it and of course monetise it.  These will have more economic value in my mind than Twitter itself — which may find itself relegated as a protocol or simple a medium.  Think email (as a medium), web pages, Mosaic/IE/Firefox or even blogs.  Those are not economically valuable in and of themselves — It’s what they enable, create or how they are manifested in other applications and extensions.

4. Twitter is the best discovery platform available today. I was wrong (ahem) for thinking that the twitterverse was completely incestuous and full of people simply following one another and tweeting back and forth the same articles from CNN or BBC News (i.e., sources that everyone reads anyway).  I have witnessed now that all you need is 1 out of 10 people (following someone or something) to be outside of a “tight circle” — for example in the art community versus the tech/startup community — and you can immediately access their other networks, sets of friends/followers and … a whole new world or a different “circle”.  Discovery through fewer and fewer degrees of separation (courtesy of Twitter) has been phenomenal for me.

5. Twitter is the first communication platform (protocol) that requires no authentication. This is a difficult for me to put into words, but possibly the most significant conclusion I’ve drawn.  (Sometimes I’m a bit slow!)  Simply put: I can ping anyone I want to.  I just need to find their handle/Twitter username and send a message, for example to @eileenshero — How easy is that?  And because of point #2 above, even if a message or a DM merely generates an email to their email/inbox or SMS on their phone, chances are (for now) @eileenshero is prioritising Twitter communication over email these days, so they’ll quite likely get back to me!

To write or send someone a letter, you need their postal address.  To ring them up, you need their phone number.  In the days of landlines and everyone-being-listed you might have been able to find this in the phone book, but in these days of mobile phones, where’s the mobile-phone-directory?  Since it doesn’t exist, you need them to give you their mobile phone number.  To send them an email, you need them (or someone else) to give you their email address.  All of these require some level of authentication or in other words the intended recipient granting you in/direct permission to make contact.  While sometimes you can send a Facebook message to a “non-friend”, this is only if the user hasn’t changed their privacy/contact settings to prevent that.  Twitter is *always* an open platform.  If you find the person you’re looking for (and the search works reasonably enough), you can contact them — without their expressed prior consent.  (I’ll go into the ramifications for online stalking in a later post.)

So as a result of these points, initial inspiration from @salimmitha, @renate and @alexkelleher and after only 1 month 2 days and 145 tweets I’m going to stick with it [for now].  But I do believe the value is fleeting … Facebook was “useful” and valuable for me for less than 2 years (and now has too much noise for me to even bother with), how long before Twitter gets to the same point and before the next “communication medium” or “discovery platform” comes along?

Well this has proven to be a pretty pathetic attempt at blogging so far (oops).  But now I’m re-motivated again and feeling slightly [over?-]confident having finally dusted off my Twitter account late last week.  If I can microblog (does anyone remember that’s how they used to describe it before it became a word/concept/culture unto itself?), I should be able to properblog, right?

Blah blah blah

That said, my excuse for the past 7 months is that [almost] everything’s been written!  Matter of fact, I think more people should just shut up and stop talking, rambling and blogging… Why should I contribute to all of the noise, fodder, naval gazing and random thoughts?  At first I thought perhaps I could offer some interesting commentary on the world of tech/startups/VC/company building, etc, but let’s be honest — everything under the sun is already being written about 1000 times more than necessary by people much smarter than me such as the team behind askthevc, Fred Wilson, Dave McClure and literally hundreds of other people more prominently in “the scene”, so what could I possibly have to add to the discussion regarding paying to pitch [don't do it], fees [get at least 2 term sheets so you can have a chance at negotiating for respectable terms], ideal term sheets [it's all out there if you Google a bit], how to build great founding teams [ditto], how much VCs need to change [agreed that funds are getting too big], how they’re coming back [Q32009 looks good] or how Europe [UK] is different than the US [where do I start?]

Keep your clothes on

However, I have been thinking about something lately that  hasn’t been written about (at all) and that is why women in the London tech ecosystem should not participate in the Nude London Tech Calendar 2010.  I know my opinion is going to annoy some people, and I’m sure it will really annoy the organizers (and I know it’s all for charity) and they have much more web presence than I do [none], but still it needs to be said out loud.  I know for a fact that there’s a lot of discussion, chatter, snickering and opinions being offered 1:1 and in small group discussions, and while there’s great PR so far in support for the calendars, no one’s coming out publicly to call this out and just say firstly “Come on, get real” and “For god’s sake ladies, take a pass”.

On the first point, let’s be real and brutally honest here.  If you want to raise money for charity, there are a million other ways to do it.  Organize a 10k, half-marathon, marathon, 3-legged race, whatever.  Set up a contribution basket/box at the next TechCrunch event.  Organise an event, lunch, drinks and have people contribute there.  I mean seriously, is there a business plan around this calendar?  How much money is the team seriously expecting to make?  How many calendars do you have to sell to make up for the value of the time of all the tech people who will not be working, building companies, investing or consulting while they work on this calendar?  (Just take the value of their salaries, options and carry and put that into the charity.)

Not a girl’s girl

Now on the latter point, I do not want to be the “Woman in tech/vc/startups who just writes about women’s issues”, because if you know me, you’ll know I’d rather shoot myself in the head, but no one is saying this in public, so I might as well:  Grow up. Do not pose for that calendar, even if it’s for charity, and even if you’re so super secure and confident in your abilities to [run a company, manage people, attain huge success, etc., etc.] that you don’t mind being proud about your physical attributes as well…  (Who cares?)

Let’s be clear, my advice that you shouldn’t pose is directed at men too — Girls, guys, everyone, just get real.  Keep your egos in check, grow up a bit and even if you’re better looking than the average person-in-tech, it still doesn’t mean people will buy a calendar with your picture in it.

However, more especially for women, and not just for the obvious reasons.  Speaking of those, let’s just get those out of the way…

If you’re in this business and want to be taken seriously as a woman, keep your clothes on.  If you want to be perceived and judged as clever, quick-witted, with good business acumen, laser-focussed on your work and generally with your shit together, then keep the primary attention and focus on your cerebral achievements and don’t over-flaunt your physical assets.

That was straightforward enough, right?  So here’s the other less obvious reason you should not pose nude (even “tastefully”, whatever) for a calendar…

If you’re confident about your appearance and even feel that it might be a bit of an advantage for you (which I will never disagree with), then keep an air of mystery going…!  Why the f’k bare the goods for everyone and their brother to see in a calendar?  Keep the allure, maintain the mystery, keep the attraction going and the phermones pumping and don’t blow all that future “networking” and deal-making on a calendar.

The more things change..

This is classic “how to get a man” or basic “how to stay interesting” logic.  High heels, pencil skirts, just a bit of ankle, leg, neck, shoulder, all of it … All much more alluring and interesting than someone who flaunts it (= skank).  Maintain a bit of decorum and you’re going to get a lot more interest than if you take it all off.

I know the calendar is great PR (proven by all the mentions in TechCrunch, The Next Web even the Telegraph etc and all the tweets #LDNnudetech, but come on.  This is not high school anymore.

We’re in tech.  In theory that means we are innovative, intelligent and love a challenge.  What happened here (in the name of charity)?

Still not sure why I was surprised to find it (guess it should be obvious he’d have a profile), but I really dig it!  Straight and to the point.

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3… And it worked didn’t it?

In that case, while this post starts with obvious statements, it lives up to its promise (you kind of feel he has a valid point to make beyond the obvious) with great examples.

Oops, that didn’t work (as I expected) after all.  Here’s the post by Fred Wilson which basically gets to the ideal team size for (web) businesses.