I've been cranking away on our monthly Webinar.  On the first Thursday of every month, our company hosts a worldwide webinar... usually attended by a few hundred software and internet CEOs, Founders, and Execs.  Putting together the content is the job of one Dougan Milne.

I secretly enjoy this little portion of my job.  It's like a mad rush at the beginning of every month to get all the most recent market data quickly condensed and turned into something credible for us to present to all of our software chums.  That isn't to say it is a slap-job.... oh, quite the contrary:  we are tracking and categorizing all of this data on a day-by-day basis.  But... getting it into presentation form is the tricky bit.

Anyways... of the 60 minute presentation, I usually report for about 20 minutes of it.  The Charts, Graphs, Data... and generally, all the stuff that they are constantly telling me to "hurry up" with. ;-)

So.. tomorrow is April Fools.  It is also the first Thursday of the month, and if you have time tomorrow morning to drop by and get some insight into our market... you are cordially invited.

http://www.corumgroup.com/Events.aspx

See you there.
  

The weather has gotten significantly warmer here the past few weeks... downright nice.  I've already taken the Supermoto down to the track a few times, but this weekend will be my first time out on the dirt in 2010.  Very much looking forward to this.  We'll be in Walker Valley.  See you there! 

A few weeks back, it was announced that Seattle was the first city to publicly apply for Google's 1Gbps fiber network.  Naturally, being from Seattle, I was very proud to see our local government further honoring the hand that feeds it -- as our state has made some decisions over the past few years that have pushed other technology/engineering companies out.

After the initial excitement wore-off, I started thinking about How & Why Google would choose Seattle as their fast-as-dark internet testbed.  Here are some Pros & Cons I've come up with:

Seattle Pros:
+  Extremely high adoption rates for emerging technologies
+  Productivity/Activity are high on both the consumer and enterprise lever [over web], so Google would be supplied with a very rich stream of data to analyze
+  Very multi-cultural environment with strong international ties
+  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer ;-)

Seattle Cons:
+  Keep your friends close, because your enemies might decide to eat you
+  Geographically, this is probably the single worst landscape in the world for fiber infrastructure
+  Competition -- T-mobile, Clear, AT&T call it home
+  Back to geography... While the population is particularly dense in Seattle, a fiber network downtown would be highly isolated, perhaps not meeting the spectrum of users intended for the project

I don't want to be the bad-news-betty, but I've already started adjusting my comfort level to the fact that Seattle WILL NOT be the test site for Google's 1Gbps project.  I truly hope that I'm wrong, but the geography and competition here are HUGE hurdles that will likely nix the idea from Google's planning department.

I spent the morning at the King County Department of Development and Environmental Services.  Ugh... right?  Actually.... actually, I have to admit, this was probably the most pleasant experience I have ever had with a governmental agency.  I had already secured the idea of the DMV, State Records, County departments in my head.  This was something quite different.

Different is the key word here.  What this particular department has done is set themselves up in a collaborative environment to interact with the community.  Every day from 7:30am - 9:30am they have an open floor policy, whereby citizens can sign their name, their purpose, and then immediately start connecting with agents who have expertise in specific domains.

Let me clarify the situation with My example:  I showed-up at 8am with a bunch of questions surrounding, A:  Wetlands+Critical Area;  B:  Clearing+Development;  C:  Permitting;  D:  Septic+Well.

The lady at the counter tells me that she has paged 4 different individuals who specialize in my specific needs, each of which would meet with me.

First, I spoke to an Environmentalist who literally answered every question I could possibly manifest on the topic of wetlands, streams and critical zoning.

Second, I met with the Clearing and Development specialist who told me all of my limitations, exceptions, loop holes, and boundaries were.

Third, the permit lady was unfortunately not in the office, but quickly responded to my inquiries over the phone.

Fourth, the Septic and Water guru talked me through all the necessary steps I would need to take in order to qualify my water source and disposal.

I connected with 4 people today that completely satisfied all of my needs for this particular occasion.  That is so rare at the public level.... and I have to say I am totally impressed. 

OK... so you'll notice that all the blogs in here have the same date.  The reason is because I just realized that I want to shift everything over to blog format, instead of basic layout format.  There are a couple reasons for this - one of which is SEO.  I hope you understand.