Bicycle Film Festival 10 Year Anniversary

Its the 10-Year Anniversary for the Bicycle Film Festival. 

The film, music and art trifecta was conceive by visionary Brendt Barbur during the time he took to recover from a biking accident. 

Bringing cycling to the masses has been Barbur’s mission for the last decade. The number of people attending his festival and its overwhelming success prove this. In the last two years the festival has expanded to over 30 cities and with over two-hundred-thousand participants it is a cultural phenomenon. 

Starting tonight we mark the beginning of a weeks’ movie premieres (look out for Empire), bike rides, races, art shows and musical events. There will be something for everyone. Details for New York here.

No matter what type of cyclist you are the BFF is for you. Mountain bikers, unicyclists, tarck bikers, road racers and cargo bikes come together in unity to celebrate the world’s most efficient means of travel: the bicycle.

Big shout out to Brendt and the BFF Family for making this happen. 

You Guys ROCK!

Summer Starts Now

Seems to me there are a bunch of things I should have or could have been writing about lately.

Living in New York again, after my San Francisco fling (thats what I am calling the last two years), has been thus far a delightful experience. Reacclimatizing to Manhattan living does not take too long. 

There is a vibrancy in the technology field that I did not feel back when I left the city in 2008. Companies are being funded and making big differences in how we live our lives. If we take some of the local favorites we can look to success in newly founded Foursquare, kickstarter, Hunch, omgpop or tumblr to name a few. This speaks to how NY-based start-ups have both created value for consumers and their shareholders. 

But, I digress, this is not about technology. 

Happy to see the sun arising at 5:30am. The weather is heating up and t-shirts/short combos are back with a vengeance. 

Weekend excursions, summer trips and rooftop parties are what I look forward to most. My bike rides will no longer involve black ice (although there might be some patches of rain). 

We have the World Cup engaging our senses and super-charging our workplaces. Heading to the embassies and numerous sports bars will consume much of my time during the next month. I will cherish these moments, for they only come but once every four years!

Going to try and be more frequent with these postings. Many things to say, never enough time.

Happy 4sq day

Today was 4 Square Day or for you twitter folks. It has been an most excellent experience to see Foursquare evolve into an awesome user experience. Now the crowds have spoken and there are official days for celebrating just how awesome Foursquare is as a company. I would add that I am one of the faithful converts. When I first heard that Dennis was starting a new company with Naveen - I thought it was a step forward in our evolutionary process as a group of technologists. This idea has been proven to be useful and provocative. Through Michael Galpert and Nate Westheimer I kept tabs on 4sq. Unfortunately the first versions of the application were not written for Blackberry. So it was kind of odd that I was hearing all these great things and not able to use foursquare myself. Tonight I attended the official 4sqday party sponsored by Pepsi at the Hotel on Rivington. It was held in a very posh penthouse. There were three levels (including a rooftop with a hot tub full of half naked women. Free libations (Goors Light and Don Q Rum) mixed well with the pulsating DJ beats. The spectacular Manhattan skyline augmented the evening. The evening was a huge success. Jessica and myself thoroughly enjoyed ourselves as did many of our friends in attendance. I look forward to the next progressive baby footsteps that will lead 4sq into the future. And congrats on your current VC raise.

United States Census 2010

Its an important time in United States history, the taking of the once in a decade United States Census.

The other week I was talking with Stanford Professor of Sociology Michael Rosenfeld. He provided an intersting insight that we (the US) have the most comprehensive census in the world.

Imagining the populaces of the various countries around the globe and their respective ages in terms of existence it baffles me that the United States would have the most comprehensive catalog of information regarding our ever-evolving population. You would think that very small countries like Iceland or Denmark would have more comprehensive statistics, but you would be wrong. They have records that stretch back much further than the US, but not all encompassing.

In my senior year of high school there was a primary election taking place in Marin County. Not sure what the particulars were for the day, but I worked as a poll staffer. For the six or eight hours of sitting around and answering questions at my local elementary school I was able to see the election process in progress. This was an instance where not only did I have the chance to vote, but I could help in the process.

When we hear numbers like “China has 1.5 billion citizens and India’s population is surging past 1.9 billion” we need to take pause and wonder - How do we know that these numbers are legit? Its my hope that working with the census for two months as a part-time government worker, will give me a better idea for how and why we come to the various conclusions regarding our country’s make-up. How does this country breakdown its ethnic groups, religion, family size of 1.5 kids per household, # of relatives, # of immigrants (both legal and illegal)?

All of these numbers matter. Our ability to remain a forward thinking society is founded on our unique melting pot status. I want to be a part of this information gathering process. Its not everyday that I get the opportunity to work with statistics and gather them too.

Its also pretty neat to see a government agency using social media. They have a twitter page, Youtube, Blog, etc to connect with more citizens. They were even up for a Webby as best govt entity online.