Jeremy Tanner

Startup Weekend: A Report From The Cleaner

Jeremy — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:28:42 +0000

I’m Winston Wolfe Jeremy Tanner, I solve problems.

A few weeks ago I got an email from my friend Andrew Hyde. Startup Weekend’s new CEO had quit without notice and Andrew had a scheduling conflict preventing him from heading out to his home state weekend. My mission should I chose to accept it: Free Solo a Startup Weekend. The original venue canceled at the beginning of the week, leaving the weekend in danger of being pushed back or canceled.

No local organizer? No furniture? No whiteboards? No powerstrips? No food czar? No head bouncer? No problem.

OK, a Startup Weekend on the rocks is no dead body in the back of a Chevy Nova, that can be fixed with some bleach and a blanket. Startup Weekend required a few more phone calls

Same day a email inquiry was made, Scott Kveton of Vidoop offered up his week-old downtown space. A call to the party place and a trip to office depot later, tables, chairs, power strips, sticky poster sheets and markers had been secured. Beer / snack run with an early weekender as a preemptive strike (You can’t be grumpy while you’re drinking free beer!)

Over the next days I was Club SW Doorman/Bouncer, Food Finder, Meeting Master, Motivator, Referee and Donut Taster. (I recommend the Bacon Maple Bar) The weekenders brought their A-game forming Mugasha (Random access DJ Set sharing and listening), GetGathered (Meeting Scheduler), Treasurecycle (Barter your old stuff), Life Grant (Dream / Goal Funder) and Startup River (Idea -> Profit!).

I came away from the weekend impressed with Portland’s community and with even more respect for Andrew and the company he built, city-by-city last year. Also a good starter list for the Startup Weekend best practices being assembled to ease things as Andrew passes the reins of SW to Clayton. Finally, big thanks to weekend sponsors Vidoop, JumpBox and Colour Lovers!

*Apologies to both Pulp Fiction and “The Wolf”

Making shirts? Do it right.

Jeremy — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:17:34 +0000

From recent travels and conferences, I now have a large pile of T-shirts, and a much smaller pile that made it into the daily rotation. The point is this, if you’re going to print promo T-shirts, do it right. First rule, unless your company logo is So Hot Right Now™, have the shirts designed. If the guy in marketing thinks it looks good, it doesn’t. A design specific to an event can also earn extra points. Second, if you want people to wear the shirts, print on American Apparel. Sure, it costs twice as much, but the shirts will be worn more than 10 times more often. People wear shirts that are comfortable, my favorite shirt was an American Apparel shirt before I knew what American Apparel was. Lastly, don’t go with a large solid print on the shirts, it makes them wear like plastic bags, they don’t breathe at all. And there it is, how to keep your promo T-shirts from ending up as rags.

1000 Cubes for SXSW

Jeremy — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:46:06 +0000

That’s a box, 2 inches shy of a foot on every side 10″x10″x10″, all the more I’m going to fly to Austin with. If it doesn’t fit in the bag, it’s not coming. I’ll be around for 77 hours (we’re losing an hour to daylight saving time, remember to set those clocks back forward kids) In midnight Saturday morning, out early Tuesday. Sort of a snack-size SXSW. Leaving the laptop and SLR at home, packing one T-shirt (I hear they’re going to be growing on trees), one pair of shoes, underwear for each day and a jacket. I can avoid doing laundry before leaving if I buy new socks before heading out. Twitter updates @Penguin and I’ll edit this post when I figure out where the iPhone images are going to end up from the weekend.

San Francisco Rising

Jeremy — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:14:20 +0000

San Francisco Rising from penguin on Vimeo.

Just a quick video I made from a glass elevator before leaving San Francisco.

Great to meet you all at BlogWorld

Jeremy — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:07:10 +0000

BlogWorld Expo in Vegas last week was a whirlwind. This is the post where I link some of those I ran into, in roughly the order met starting Tuesday night.Chris Brogan , Marshall Kirkpatrick, Chris Heuer, Jim Turner, Tris Hussey, Krista Neher, Erin Kotecki Vest, Kris Krug…And too many others, thanks for making the first Blogworld Expo so successful.

Vegas Baby, Vegas!

Jeremy — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:06:06 +0000

Jeff and I just checked into our hotel in Las Vegas to liveblog Blogworld Expo and New Media Conference on the Blogworld Expo Blog. Keep up with the conference on twitter @blogworld & follow Jeff and I @utgm.

Startup Weekend Boston

Jeremy — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:27:30 +0000

A nice thing about Startup Weekend is, you can call your role anything you want, it doesn’t have to be serious and probably shouldn’t be. I ended up in a variety of roles over the weekend.

Head Bouncer at Club Axon: Axon Labs is on the 4th floor of an old paper mill. It has multiple points where badge access is required. Being that there was one badge to share across all founders, first role for the weekend was to make sure that everyone was able to make it in and up. It was great to meet you all!
Chief Transparency Officer: If you can’t make it to a startup weekend, it’s still a lot of fun to follow along at home. How much fun depends on how good the information coming out is. Jeff had the text end of the blog on lock (and his eyes on the Cohen Cup), so in addition to updating SW twitter, I shot Inside Startup Weekend, a series of short, confessional style, videos from the founders. I hope they are as fun to watch as they were to make.
Ace Troubleshooter: When a rogue wp-cron knocked Startup Weekend sites down across the board Friday night, Jeff and I got right to fixing it. You just can’t blog onto an error page.
Mediator: Sometimes people just need to hug it out. I make those hugs happen.

The weekend wasn’t without it’s hitches. There were some who went outside the spirit of the weekend in various ways. Some made themselves titles (Chief this, VP of that) and took them seriously. Some treated SW as the less important part of their Boston vacation. Some pushed roles onto others outside their ability or interest. The Red Sox played championship games a few miles away Saturday and Sunday. The HD camera bricked most of the way through the shoot. One of the offices had a leaky roof.The weekend was full of high points too. Teams getting serious work done as those who were interested stayed. There were silly mustaches and goofy singing. 7 minute meetings featuring Yoga. A dinnertime acoustic set from Samantha Murphy. Launching the site as the Sox clinched the series Sunday night. But mostly, real friendships that transcend the weekend and the 2,000 miles from Boston back to Boulder.The weekend ended on a bum note for me as my laptop was stolen shortly before my flight out, still, it was a great experience.Lessons Learned, In no particular order,

Titles are ok, so long as they’re not serious.
You don’t need 3 levels of executives to manage developers on a weekend project.
Death Cab for Jeremy - Downtown Boston and the Mass Pike are not the best places for your driver to learn how to drive stick.
Disaster Cab part II - Just because the man drives a cab, don’t assume he knows his way around, I had to google maps the directions and then turn by turn navigate for the cabbie twice.
Be interesting, people watching want to see an interesting story, people there want to live one, it’s a weekend, time for silly mustaches and goofy singing. Leave your lists of rules and forms at home.

Check it out! DeskHappy

Chillin With My Gnomies

Jeremy — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:39:16 +0000

This weekend I’m out in Boston for Startup Weekend Boston. I’m wearing a lot of hats (Head Bouncer, Chief Transparency Officer, Mediator), but it’s been a great time. I’ve learned a whole lot, made some new friends and helped make DeskHappy, a office fitness app. I’ll give a rundown with lessons learned as soon as the weekend wraps up. Until then, signup on the DeskHappy page, follow me at Twitter:StartupWeekend, Twitter:Penguin and on the Startup Weekend Blog Later Gnomies!

You never forget your first

Jeremy — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:24:10 +0000

Atop Grays PeakView From Grays PeakSeptember 16, 2007. I Climbed my first 14er. Grays Peak, (14,270 ft) Highest point on the continental divide, 10th highest in Colorado, 25th highest peak in the US.A few tips. Get to bed before 5 the night before. Stay hydrated. Carry very little, but include a rain jacket, warm layer, and a hat. Sunglasses are nice to have. Be off the peak by noon.

NOS Energy Drink. It’ll redline your heart.

Jeremy — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:30:11 +0000

The next time you’re looking to fill your body with life-threatening levels of performance enhancing nutritional supplements disguised as a soda, reach for a NOS. Normally reserved for the climax scenes in the Fast and Furious Trilogy, NOS has crossed over into the energy drink market. Upon the recommendation of a friend who drinks enough of the stuff to float a Carnival cruise, I gave NOS a shot. Now I’m legally required to mention that NOS is not for everyone. NOS is not for women who are pregnant or may become pregnant. NOS is not for children or those sensitive to caffeine. If you experience lightheadedness, heart pains or death while using the NOS, discontinue drinking it immediately. I was initially skeptical, but NOS tastes better, goes down smoother and packs a better punch than most energy drinks.