blue shift

making peach flavored kool-aid

Last night I attended the Atlanta Web Entrepreneur's Meetup on the state of Atlanta's Startup Ecosystem. Scott Burkett and Mike Blake of StartupLounge presented and followed with a call to action and open discussion on their proposal to strengthen this community.

Let me back up three years. In 2006 I was working with Sherry Heyl at What a Concept! (now Concept Hub). It was through Sherry that I began to receive an introduction and crash course into the Atlanta business community: who's who, how it operated, etc. To my dismay I saw a community that was very much traditional business with no clue about social media or how it was changing the way business works at fundamental levels. Having been primarily exposed to Silicon Valley's culture, it was a bit of a shock to me to meet the 20th century in 2006. And there was barely a startup community to speak of: at least not one I would recognize.

Since then, social media has taken over Atlanta (as it has the rest of the world), and there seems to be exponentially more activity as individuals all over the city have been empowered by social media and the relationships they've been able to build as a result.

I've been on a bit of a sabbatical for the past year and a half and have only recently returned to the local 'startup scene' to see what's new. And what I see is fantastic! Not only is there a growing community of entrepreneurs, it seems there is a conversation that has picked up critical mass about taking it to the next level! Leading of course to last night's discussion where Scott and Mike pitched their vision for how we can take this community to the next level: The 'Atlanta Startup Cloud'.

For more of a summary on last night's event check out @urvaksh's ABC article. (Let me know if there are other summary blog posts I can add here.)

There were a number of ideas flying last night about building an online community space, mentorship, education, coworking, culture, legal concerns, finding resources, and a number of other topics. What really resonated with me was the fact that what was being proposed was creating some new cultural patterns in Atlanta.

As I said during the discussion, we need to create our own flavor of kool-aid. (Peach kool-aid!) We're not Silicon Valley, so we have to discover what works for us. And beyond leadership in education and mentorship within the community, we need to introduce some straight up indoctrination!

If a new entrepreneur approaches someone plugged into the 'Atlanta Startup Cloud', that person should be able to give them a quick rundown of this city works and how they can both contribute to and gain from the community.

Last night I brought up the topic of core values, and yes there were some eyes rolling. (Eyes always roll!) But core values are none the less important. Last night was a meeting about leadership, and it's up to everyone who has an interest in growing the Atlanta startup ecosystem to take up the burden of leadership. In order for this to be successful, a discussion of core values must be had. While discussing this with a few people last night, a joke was cracked about creating a mission statement for this project. I loved Scott's reply: it's not a mission statement that's needed, but a manifesto!

So, what is the manifesto for the Atlanta Startup Cloud? How should the entrepreneurial community in this city operate, and how can each of us as individuals, budding startups, and support organizations within this ecosystem contribute towards the success of all of us? What are the values that are going to drive this thing, and propel this discussion to the next level of action?

health update

In short for those who scare easily, I'm healthy!! Yay. :)

In longer form:

As my Twitter followers know, I had another surgery on my vocal chords last week. The quality of my voice had been progressively getting worse, and it was becoming more and more difficult to make actual vocal sounds in the midrange of my voice which is usually where I speak from. Swallowing also felt weird. After visiting my ENT (Dr. Koriwchak) and having the obligatory laryngoscope shoved down my throat, he informed me that there was another growth keeping my left vocal chord from vibrating. Great. (Luckily, nothing restricting my breathing pathway.)

So surgery #32 was had last Tuesday! And I must say, this was one of the more fun ones. St. Joseph's hospital has a new protocol in place for keeping blood circulating in the legs during surgery. Basically, they give you foot messaging balloon type things that go on your legs. During surgery, they inflate. And they're alot of fun.

Post-op was this week, and it turns out that I had a cluster of Papillomas growing both above and below my false chord and only a very small one on my left vocal chord. (This is a good thing.)

Given that the last three surgeries have had less than a year between them, I asked if this might indicate an increase in the cursed abnormal growth. His response was that Papillomas are irregularly irregular in growth and we should only worry and think about doing something different if they start growing in under six months.

So, I should be good for at least another year or more. (Yay!)

In other health news, I went for a physical with my pcp this week. I haven't had one in a few years, so I thought it would be a good idea. A blip came up with my blood pressure, but a second test came back at normal levels (Same happened in the hospital last week). Lab results came back, and everything's normal save my triglyceride levels which are slightly elevated but not in above average risky range. Most likely this means I should exercise a little and lose like five pounds or something. 

It could also mean that my caloric intake this past week has been much higher than I've been able to burn due to my recovery from surgery diet which has included more cheeseburgers in a single week than I can ever remember eating at any other time in my life. 

Note to self: When going in for a physical, make sure you do so during a time which reflects your regular diet.