In terms of disclosure - and you couldn't figure it out from this site - I'm a technologist. I always have been and can't imagine being anything other than the Tech Guy sitting at the table. That said, I do tend to have - and share! - business insights and perspective... some of them are even valuable...

Yesterday, my friend and colleague Ann Bernard asked an interesting question in The Tech Guy Vs. The Biz Dev Guy. In fact, I wrote on a similar issue just a couple weeks ago in Managing Technology in a Startup. In that, I focused on making sure there was a Tech Guy at the table in a startup. That technical issues and information were considered on Day One. That the technology was not treated as an afterthought. But Ann's question is a bit different:

Who do you think has the greatest battle to fight and who is best setup for success? The Tech Guy or the Biz Dev Guy??

Aaron Brazell is talking about it in "Friends vs Fans" and Jared Goralnick talks about it in "Avoiding the online popularity contest to seek a deeper connection".

It all boils down to:  What is a friend?

There are some people on social networks that seem to add everyone and anyone they have ever, will ever, or ever want to meet.  This gives the massive networks of people whom they don't know at all or know in passing.  This seems to be the most common on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Personally, I approach it a bit differently...

Tired of all the big conferences been 2000+ miles and a five hour flight away? Tired of hearing about all the latest toys after the fact and saying "I wish I came up with hat!" Well, no more...

Charting the Next Course

Yes, it's in Baltimore, Maryland. Yes, it's in 11 days. Yes, it's free. Yes, it's about figuring out and conjecturizing about where the web is going.

Yes, Facebook Apps can be useful...

Yes, Social Media is interesting...

Yes, mobile is starting to gain momentum...

But what is happening tomorrow? Where are things going? How will they get there?

If you haven't been to a TECH cocktail.. it's simply an experience. Wow. It was a continuous stream of chaos and ideas... friendly faces, both new and old... some tasty drinks... and it was a complete and total blur. I didn't go more than 30 seconds without being introduced to someone, running into someone, or being grilled for information.

Some highlights of the festivities:

This is a recap of PodCampDC 2008 which happened on 19 April 2008. If you're disappointed you missed it... well, keep an eye out for the next one! ;) You can check out some of the PodCampDC pictures on Flickr.

Due to an exhausting couple of weeks, I chose to sleep in and miss the opening keynote.

The first session was Jessie Newburn's talk on "Generations and Social Media". I've met and spoken with Jessie a number of times over the past couple months, but this was the first opportunity to really hear some of the guts and details of the generational differences, priorities, patterns, etc.

Earlier this week, I sat on a panel at American University titled "Starting your own Business: Trials and Tribulations". While all of the panelists work in startups, have managed in startups, and have often founded startups, I found myself as the sole technologist in the bunch... speaking to a bunch of MBA grads and budding entrepreneurs.

Update on 27 Apr: I forgot to link to the great pictures taken by the Jobmatchbox team.

Disclaimer: With all due respect, what I describe can easily happen someone without an MBA, I've seen but I'm talking patterns here. ;)

One of the things that often - not always! - drives someone to business school is the desire to start their own company. The flexibility, the power, the excitement, the big idea that they have. No, seriously the *big* idea. Somewhere along the way, the get all the pieces that go into making it happen... they learn about the marketing, the strategy, the presentations, the research, and all the other little bits and pieces.

After much waiting and a few false starts, it exists!

The Project Exporter is now available to all sponsors.

All sponsors should be contacted within the next 24 hours with a private download link. In addition, a demo will be viewable online within approximately 48 hours.

The current release should be considered an Alpha and is open to suggestions, feedback, guidance and - more than anything - a bit of testing. Although we test extensively and have numerous dotProject projects for testing, we don't have every possible one and there may be oddities with your specific projects.

The more - and more complete - information you give, the faster and more efficiently we can diagnose and resolve any issue. Therefore, please provide feedback/bug reports to support [at] caseysoftware.com with the following information: