We Are All Entrepreneurs Now

The Future of Work

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~ Local entrepreneur T.A. McCann in a 2-minute video on "The Future of Work":



The future of work is one of no boundaries. Not on when we work, for whom, how long, with whom, or in what capacity. Success flows from passion: our best work is what we love, and we do it with our friends (who may also happen to be our business contacts) in one broad and fluid network of fast-moving, freely-associating individuals. Of course it also flows from regularly accomplishing goals, delivering on promises, and creating value.

Growing Cleantech Businesses

Matchmaking

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~ Ever been to the PSE Auditorium in downtown Bellevue? While not the same as the space of the same name that is a frequent site of weddings, perhaps it is fitting nonetheless as the Washington Clean Technology Alliance (WCTA) and the Cleantech Open (CTO) pair up there on Friday for what will be one of the year's outstanding events. Our friends at Business Leaders for Climate Solutions are sponsoring as well.

Hear speakers on the Sustainable Aviation Fuels NW initiative, a panel on the future of nuclear power and several local entrepreneurial leaders and the announcement of this year's Pacific Northwest CTO semi-finalists. And of course good food, great networking, fun and probably a few surprises along the way.

Get your tickets here (while they last!)

Full agenda:

Startup Moments

Entrepreneur Competition

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~ Customer pain, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Entrepreneurs are drawn to painful needs; if it is urgent, compelling and unmet, one can be sure that there will be entrepreneurs competing to satisfy the need and alleviate the pain. The old adage is true: if you have no competition you probably have no market.

It is through this lens that one might wonder about the growing spate of entrepreneurial contests: challenges, competitions, thus-and-such of the years, opens... The customers are the entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs, but what is the pain they suffer that these contests assuage? Don't entrepreneurs face enough competition in the market for the product or service that they seek to provide? Why compete against other startups with offerings that target different problems and offer different solutions, i.e. against companies that, in a market sense, aren't competitors at all?

The answer lies in another startup truism: the need to carefully define your market, to know who your customer is and what and why they will buy what you offer.

What Price Carbon?

Pacific Northwest Carbon Pricing Conference

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~ This Saturday there is a conference at the University of Washington to explore the costs and benefits of different approaches to pricing carbon. Carbon is a huge externality that distorts the economics of energy, and, because energy is a critical element in virtually everything else, carbon is a huge externality to our economic system both broadly and deeply.

The Conference will be held in Room T439 at the UW Health Sciences Building from 9:00 to 3:00 and has a great speaker list. Two of many are engaging PSE CEO Kimberly Harris and the very knowledgeable Professor of Atmospheric Science Cliff Mass. I'm also greatly looking forward to seeing again Yoram Bauman, the world's only "stand-up economist" who can truly make economic analysis not only very funny, but also very understandable.

The main topics the conference will cover are:

Where's It Wednesday—XXVIII

Where in Seattle is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to last week's puzzle after the jump.

UW EIC Winners

3rd Annual Competition Best Yet

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~ It was a great afternoon at the Seattle Center Exhibit Hall for the culmination of the University of Washington's Environmental Innovation Challenge. 17 teams made it to the finals and were scored on their 1-page executive summary, a 2-minute stand-up pitch, the caliber of their exhibit hall demo, and the judges' assessment of the potential impact of their idea.

The first prize winner was Voltaic, maker of modular components for electric vehicle drivetrains, including motor, transmission, braking, and power electronics. The team installed their prototype in a Honda Accord donated from Burien Honda and showed how they could both power the car and brake it by running the motors backwards. Regrettably, we couldn't take it for a real test drive, but I'd sure like to see it out on the track to see what it can really do.

NW Energy Angels

Angels in the Infrastructure

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Tonight I had the pleasure of attending the Northwest Energy Angels (NWEA) annual holiday party, held at the Talaris Conference Center in Seattle's Laurelhurst neighborhood. Many of NWEA's members are veterans of local technology startups, entrepreneurs/business owners, or both. Others include financial, engineering, service and other professionals. The organization has been very active since its founding in 2006, investing over $3M in 18 companies, including such success stories as enerG2, Farm Power, MicroGREEN Polymers, Novinium and Propel Fuels.

5 Degrees of Uselessness...

...Applied

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Will they still be on strike
if we ignore them?

I couldn't resist clicking on an article with the headline "How to Succeed with a 'Useless' Degree" not to learn how to succeed, but rather to find out what degrees were deemed useless.

It was not much of a surprise to learn that the five featured "useless" degrees includes one of mine--Philosophy. While I recall no one asking me to what use I could put my Philosophy degree, there's no doubt that many think discussions of philosophy to be pointless and recondite—navel gazing where no one cares about the navel.

Be Afraid

Be very afraid.

Networking Made Memorable through Storytelling

Another networking opportunity

Did you know I once slept in Elizabeth Taylor's bed?

Why have I never told you that story? Perhaps you have a great story too that you've never told me?

The indispensible Scott Adams wrote a stimulating blog post with the amazingly boring title Active Listening. (Important though the concept is, a title like that usually makes me tune out.) Most of the post is basic Dale Carnegie stuff (seek first to understand and only then to be understood, etc.) but there is a nestled gem lurking in the penultimate paragraph:

Most people have at least one good story in them. And you can usually find that story by asking where the person lived and what their parents did for a living.

Networking is much much more fun when you can get people to talk about unusual things. It's always more interesting precisely because it's unusual, and who doesn't like things that are more interesting? It's also more memorable and, as Adams points out, it leads to deeper and more meaningful connections with people.

What's interesting? Well...

Where to Go for Coffee

I had coffee with a friend this morning at Seattle's Uptown Espresso in Belltown. As we waited on the barista he remarked how much he liked the spacious and uncrowded feel of the place. I had to agree. Far too many espresso shops are cramped and sterile, especially many of those branded by a local, ubiquitous chain. They aren't a third place; instead they come in last in any ranking of places I'd care to linger.

The Uptown also has a good selection of comfy chairs and even a small separate meeting room. Best of all, it has some of the fastest internet in the city--for free. This morning was cool with low clouds so it was glassed-in along the sidewalk. In warm weather they open it up widely, merging street scene and cafe. The bus stops right in front. The coffee is good, the atmosphere inviting. Is there better anywhere nearby?

Welcome

I was the co-founder in 2007 of Hydrovolts, Inc., a maker of micro-scale hydropower turbines, and, until last week, its COO.

You can find the posts I wrote for the company's blog here.

Now I'm looking for a new challenge, ideally in a leadership role at a small-to-midsized entrepreneurial company. You can learn more about me from my LinkedIn profile, or contact me on Twitter or via Facebook.

I expect to continue posting here about some of the same things I wrote about while at Hydrovolts: renewable energy, climate change, politics, policy, and our energy future. In addition, and unlike at the Hydrovolts blog, I will likely also post about other startups, including Enerdyne Solutions, a provider of thermal management solutions for electronics, and on whose Board of Directors I serve.

There will probably be other things from time to time, including perhaps some observations along the way as I explore what I'll do next.

This will be more fun if you join in. Leave a comment. Make a suggestion. Let's get the conversation started!