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In 2009 I attended The Europas Awards in London (above), celebrating the best European tech startups. It was a very boozy, rowdy, and fun event presented by Mike Butcher, Editor of Techcrunch Europe.
I couldn't make it this year but I'm sure that the 2014 awards very much the same in tone and booze. Mike Butcher was the MC, and even one of the winners was the same: Soundcloud. The other 2014 Europas winners included: FoodPanda, Babbel, Startup Bootcamp, Brainient, Supercell, EyeEm, GoCardless, DataSift, Petcube, BlaBlaCar, BigHealth, ZenMate, Bitstamp, Hailo, Evrythng, Swiftkey, FarFetch, CodeClub, Index Ventures, and Telegram.
[At the time of writing I found no US coverage of today's Europas Awards, not even at Techcrunch. I scooped the US press. It shows how little interest there is in European startups.]
Fellow Traveling Geek Evan Spence has posted a pretty good piece about LeWeb, which we attended earlier this month in Paris. LeWeb is one of Europe's top tech conferences and is organized by San Francisco-based Loic and Geraldine Le Meur.
Ewan writes:
Le Web 2009 was like a diamond, a few flaws but on the whole brilliant and sparkling and deserving of its place in the Conference Crown Jewels of tech land.
...cards on the table, I think that the Le Web from 2007 is still the Le Web to beat...
...Le Web is probably only second to SXSW in getting that certain cross section of people into one place. The true value of any conference is in the networking and Le Web delivers that both in those who attend and the time and space that you can find to interact.
...For Le Web 2010 I would not allow a speaker (or a host of a fireside chat) on stage if they had appeared in 2009...This would at a stroke force speakers to be found from new sites, companies and people with different views than who we heard this year. And many many more Europeans on stage please!
...I felt like I was back at University being lectured rather than watching presentations and panels at a web conference. Where was the encouragement to have a two way conversation? ... Why were there no questions from the audience?
...I abhor the idea of "fireside chats" in a program. If you have to bring back Marrissa Mayer and Michael Arrington ... then rather than an almost scripted talk, send Michael into the crowd to take questions from the audience to the Google VP. Same goes for any of these softball opportunities.
... The event could be so much more, and I hope that a bit more swashbuckling, danger and risk are present in the 2010 event.
You can read the whole post and more points from Ewan here:
Thoughts on Le Web 2009 : Ewan Spence's All New Musings.
Silicon Valley Geeks and Parisian Geeks have a lot in common: lots of passion, great ideas and they speak the lingua franca of "geek."
But there is an important difference, as Beth Blecherman at Techmamas recently found on a visit to LeWeb:
While Silicon Valley geeks put on a clean tee shirt for tech conferences, European geekstake it up a notch. Here is a random geek waiting in line for LeWeb. I told him I was chronicling European Geek Chic. He looked confused but smiled for the camera. To top it off, he and many other Euro-geeks paired the geek uniform of jeans with a nice pair of (non-sneaker) shoes.
Just to keep up with the style, I put on every black and stylish piece of clothing I had. If I had time, I would of shopped from the assortment of beautiful french scarves to take my outfit up a notch.
Please see the full post, where Beth also looks for European girl geeks, which are even rarer than here:
Techmamas: Geek is a Global Language - But Twitter is Not (yet)
Startup culture seems universal these days. This year I've visited startups in the UK and more recently, in France. And I constantly meet startups in Silicon Valley, where some have relocated from many other countries.
They all share many things in common: smart, passionate people with lots of great ideas and with innovative business strategies. It almost seems as if 'geek' has become the new lingua franca of startups the world over.
Today, if I were founding a startup, I believe that a hybrid strategy is best. The following is based on some of the conversations I've had this year and over the past few years with startups from many countries.
[Please note: The following advice depends upon the type of startup and is not intended to apply to all types of companies.]
The New Rules Global Startup:
- Diversity is very important, make sure you have people from many different countries, cultures and a diversity of experiences.
- Site your research and development in France and take advantage of the 50 per cent R&D tax credit.
- Cities such as Paris offer very good incubator centers where you can find cheap office space (500 Euros per month) with included support services such as meeting rooms, broadband, telephones, common workshops.
- Cambridge in the UK is a great place to recruit smart engineers and with a fantastic culture of innovation that stretches back hundreds of years.
- Put your CEO and CMO in San Francisco/Silicon Valley area. This provides close access to capital for expansion. VCs don't like to travel. Also, this is where much of the media that covers tech and startups has become concentrated.
There are also lots of events and conferences that will save a fortune on travel costs. Plus, your top executives get to practice their English language skills if they don't yet have them. English is the international language of commerce and that won't change in a hurry, even in China executives are learning English.
- Make sure your marketing and sales departments are located in the US. The amount of effort you put into expanding your business in your home country goes much, much further if you do it in the US first.
Plus, success even of the smallest kind in the US, is multiplied in perception in your home country (and in other countries). Just as Frank Sinatra sang about making it in New York, you can then make it anywhere.
- Have people in key urban areas such as San Francisco, Santa Monica, New York, London, Paris, and Berlin. Businesses need to understand the culture in which they want to be successful. If they aren't in it they won't know it. Cities are also where emergent cultures can first be spotted.
- Have software engineering work done in low cost regions such as Bangalore, Manila, etc. Even better, choose regions such as Krakow, where there is high quality and low turnover. Some development teams in regions such as Bangalore and Pune can be 100 per cent a year, while in places such as Krakow, turnover is around 5 per cent a year. High turnover means longer time to market, which can be fatal to a startup.
- Use as much open software technologies as possible, wherever they make sense.
- Use independent contractors as much as possible, again, where applicable. We live in an increasingly atomic society, whether we like it or not.
- Make use of social media, blogging etc, as much as possible and encourage your staff, wherever they are, to be mini-media brands. You should know where your customers and potential customers are online and offline and they should know you.
Everyone in your company should be an evangelist. If they are uncomfortable in that position maybe they should be in a different position.
- Try to build up as much of the company without resorting to VC investments. You'll raise your valuation. And you can focus on making money from your market rather than being constantly distracted by having to raise capital at regular intervals.
- - -
I'll be adding more rules for the Global Startup over the coming weeks. If you have some suggestions please let me know in comments or email.
[I'm trying to support my habit (journalism) with consulting projects. It'll be first come first serve. Let me know if you need any help: tom at foremski.com or 415 336 7547. (I'm in the UK until end of December.)]
- - -
Please see:
Paris Diary: Cultural Barriers To French Startups...
Paris Diary: Putting "French" Back Into Entrepreneur
Innovation And Culture - Reflections On My UK Trip
UK Diary: Friday - Cambridge Startups
UK Diary: Thursday - A Visit To Accell Partners - UK Is Tough On Startups
UK Diary: Tuesday - Seed Camp's Highflyers
Our fellow Traveling Geek Olivier Ezratty has been a wonderful guide to Paris and also to the Parisian startup scene. Olivier makes some angel investments and he consults with French startups.
I had mentioned that I was quite impressed with the quality of the French entrepreneurs. [Paris Diary: Putting "French" Back Into Entrepreneur]
He agreed that things had improved over the past few years but he also mentioned some of the issues that French startups still need to work on. Here are some notes from our conversation:
- Engineers have a higher status within French business than sales and marketing people. This means there is less importance attached to marketing skills.
- French startups try to start in France, then expand to French speaking countries, then Europe, then US. This is not the right way to do it.
- French startups should do what Israeli startups do - goo for the largest markets. Israel has virtually no domestic market so its startups have to try for the largest markets.
-It is very difficult to make sales in France if you are a French company. You know the old saying, "No one gets fired for buying IBM." Well, the same is true in France, there is a perception that no one gets fired for buying from a US company. Despite French nationalism, there is the perception that US companies are better than French.
- Few French entrepreneurs have good language skills, few speak English well.
- French startups need to diversify their staff. It is much better if they have different nationalities. Diversity is very important within a company.
- French startups would do better if they sited their sales and marketing in the US and win reference customers there. That would make it easier to make sales in France. They can keep their R&D in France and get the tax credits.
- The French culture has a mistrust of business people. Making money or becoming rich is viewed with suspicion. This attitude can be traced back to the early eighteenth century.
- People think twice about telling their families that they work for a startup. You can be considered a failure by family and friends if you do not work for a large company.
- - -
Please see: Olivier Ezratty on Traveling Geeks.
Also his blog: Opinions Libres
(LeWeb conference floor - photo by Robert Scoble.)
The beauty of the blogging approach to news is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. If someone has written up a great story, you can simply point to it instead of trying to recreate it.
At LeWeb I was part of the Traveling Geeks group, and the group was producing a lot of great content. Here is a selection:
An excellent roundup of day two by Matthew Buckland:
matthewbuckland.com » Le Web 2009, Day 2: The good, the bad and the vacuous
The Andrew Keen panel on "Content vs Conversation: The Debate over Realtime Search" delivered quite nicely. You can't help but feel though that Keen, author of "Cult of the Amateur," is being contrarian for the sake of contrarian. What this means is that you tend not to take him seriously most of the time. He just becomes an actor, a clown, rather than someone who asks critical, important questions that test us and leads to insight. It's a pity because it's important to ask the difficult, unpopular questions -- but not at the expense of being frivolous.
...the marketing/PR panel "How brands and marketing have to adapt to this new worldwide real time 'word of mouth'" with Steve Rubel of Edelman Digital, Brian Solis, Founder & President, Future Works, Seth J. Sternberg, Co-Founder & CEO,Meebo and others. It was well moderated by the respected Chris Brogan, but ultimately disappointing. It was marked by vacuous buzzwords and statements, with little real argument, insight or practical example. My feeling is that these types of talks were important five years ago when we needed evangelism for online marketing or social media (i.e.: to tell everyone its important and they must do it!). But we've passed that phase. We get it. Let's delve deeper and have some original insights -- at least for the savvy audience of Le Web.
By David Spark:
The cool and not-so-cool of LeWeb
Not-so-cool - Who didn't pay to go on the main stage? - It appears about half of everyone who appeared on the main stage (panelists possibly excluded) paid in some manner to be there. It could be more. It's obvious because so many sponsors were on the main stage. None of these seemingly paid appearances were disclosed. I've been to plenty of conferences where there were paid presentations. Many disclose that information in the printed programs with the note, "Sponsored presentation." For a community that keeps talking about the need for "authenticity" online, I think it would be nice if there was some authentic disclosure as to who did and didn't pay to be on stage.
Not-so-cool - LeWeb is an old boys' network - I was thinking this and then I heard it repeated by a few of my colleagues. Loic gets many of the same people to present, interview, and moderate, such as Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington. Since they're friendly off stage, their on stage presentation has this sense of being an old boys' network. It's not the most welcoming feeling for the people in the audience. People were definitely unnerved by it.
By Robin Wauters from Techcrunch:
Niklas Zennström Talks European Entrepreneurship At Le Web 2009
Zennström said being an entrepreneur is a lifestyle, and requires complete dedication. Real company builders should forget about spare time and hobbies, and prepare for a lot of sweat and hard work. On the other hand, he said, riding that wave can prove to be very rewarding.
Le Web 2009 Roundtable: What Makes A Platform, Exactly?
Ryan Sarver (Twitter): we feel we have no choice but to treat developers within our ecosystem extremely well, we need that alignment.
David Jacobs (Six Apart): It's important to have an open platform, and the iPhone is a unique case for a multitude of reasons. But anyone else would be playing with fire doing it the way Apple does today.
Ethan Beard (Facebook): We have more than 350 million members now, so that's our key asset, it's what can make our platform unique. What's important to us is that user experience has to come first. I actually feel for the guys at Apple for having to manage their platform the way they are supposed to. But then again, our developers demand changes too, and we listen to them.
By Frederic Lardinois from ReadWriteWeb:
Pearltrees Beta Launches on Wednesday: Will Let You Archive the Links You Share on Twitter
Thanks to the new Twitter feature, which will put all of the links you share on Twitter into a drop box on Pearltrees, you can now easily create a complete archive of all the content you share. You still have to organize this content yourself, however. Pearltrees does not feature auto-tagging.
Jack Dorsey Talks About Square at LeWeb: Wants Dongle to be Available for Free
According to Dorsey, one of the original ideas for Square was to use the iPhone camera to take a picture of a credit card and then use OCR software to read the data. As Square wants to be able to offer its service on multiple platforms, however, the team decided to use a dongle that plugs into an audio jack.
Chad Hurley: YouTube Needs to Improve Search - More Live Programming Coming Soon
Hurley noted that a handful of users on the site make more than $1 million per year from their videos on YouTube...
Asked about YouTube on television and in the living room, Hurley said that his vision is basically a "box, an Internet connection and pizza." He did note, though, that all television will move towards an on-demand model.
LeWeb '09, France's top web conference kicked off yesterday in a cavernous hall in a grey slab-like building out in the suburbs of Paris.
Initially, there were complaints about there being 'too many Americans' and that the quality of the panels was poor -- too much fluff and self-promotion, and little substance.
But by the afternoon things improved a lot and there was an 180 degree turnaround in opinion - at least among the people I spoke with.
It's true that there were lots of Americans. I seemed to be constantly bumping into familiar faces, people I see all the time, such as Jeremiah Owyang, Dave McClure, Cathy Brooks, Chris and Kristie Wells, Robert Scoble, Brian Solis, Gabe Rivera, Steve Gillmor, and many more.
[Please see: Silicon Valley Goes To Paris... Le Web '09]
As much as I love them all, I've been trying to spend as much time as I can making new contacts and catching up with people I rarely see in the US.
Also, I'm not as interested in web 2.0 products as I am in the broader business picture, the culture of innovation and the differences between European and US startup environments. Fortunately, I've managed to do pretty well on fulfilling that goal, as hopefully you will see in current and future posts.
BT WiFi
The WiFi network at LeWeb has a long history of being a joke - there seems to be a curse on whoever tries to provide the service. This year, BT, the UK telecom giant agreed to run it.
I ran into JP Rangaswami, BT's Chief Scientist, a week ago, and he was concerned about taking on such a crucial role in such a public forum.
He needn't have worried. I can vouch for the fact that the connection was rock solid despite all the heavy users around me.
Chandeliers and champagne...
At the end of the first day of LeWeb, the Mayor of Paris invited everyone over to city hall (Hotel de Ville). It's a huge and hugely impressive building, built in 1882 in the grand chateau style.
Inside, we were greeted with a long staircase that led to the Salle des Fêtes, a stunning ballroom fitted with seemingly acres of chandeliers, gilded furnishings, and ceilings and walls painted with figures and historic scenes.
I ran into lots of people, such as Barak Hachamov, founder of my6sense, a very cool iPhone news filtering app. Barak is one of my favorite serial entrepreneurs, and it's always great to catch up with him.
I ran into Tara Hunt, once in San Francisco, now running Shwowp, a startup in Montreal. Also, Bob Rosenchein, CEO of Answers.com (a Traveling Geeks sponsor); Natasha Friis Saxenberg, representing the Danish based Webcom Labs, which helps develop startups; Jean-Xtophe Ordonneau from Melcion, Chassagne & Cie; Stephanie Hospital and Lionel Fumado from Orange; Rodrigo Sepulveda from Sepulveda.net; and Pierre Bellanger of Skyrock.com.
Silicon Valley exile
The highlight of my evening was meeting up with Dave Galbraith, a good friend who used to live in San Francisco and is now living in Geneva. It was Dave and Om Malik (GigaOm) that encouraged and inspired me to become a "blogger" -- nearly six years ago.
Dave is a serial entrepreneur and one of a very small number of people that I consider to be original thinkers. Dave is invariably a few steps ahead of everyone else.
Dave, Om, and I used to meet up at Harrington's pub in downtown San Francisco, Thursday evenings after work and have conversations that would spark ideas for days afterwards.
I miss the "Harrington sessions" because it's not easy finding people that share the same understanding of media, and insights into the 'web 2.0' business world. It's a type of language that few people understand well, even in Silicon Valley.
After the mayor's party we were going to go celebrate Brian Solis's birthday, but what was a small group had grown much larger and the logistics had become complex.
Dave and I decided to duck out, an easy choice, especially since I see most of those people on a near weekly basis.
Dave used to live in Paris and so we went to one of his favorite bars to have some dinner and catch up. It was great walking along ancient Parisian streets, lined with old buildings with that characteristic bowed profile. Dave is an architect by training and he explained that the bowing was because of the timber framework behind the facades, which imparts a flexibility that enables these buildings to survive hundreds of years.
When in Rome...
The place was small but perfectly sized, with a Parisian Bohemian decor and a lovely horseshoe-shaped bar counter of green marble, and a dining area in the back.
I ordered Tartare de Boeuf, one of my favorite dishes but one that most Americans would consider a suicidal choice: raw minced steak with a raw egg on top. It is eaten by mixing raw onions, capers, and dijon mustard. It's delicious.
Dave said he's been missing San Francisco and its startup community and being around people that shared an understanding of media, business models, and technology.
Even when he lived in New York, he said it was difficult finding like-minded people. In Geneva it is worse, there is no startup community at all, everyone is focused on money and little else.
It is easy to take San Francisco and the Silicon Valley startup community for granted. I often do it myself, it sometimes feels small and even insignificant.
When people ask who my audience is I often say, "I write for the 'high school cafeteria,' the 400 or so people that run Silicon Valley and that influence its trends and culture."
My traffic on SVW is much more than that, but still tiny compared to the a Techcrunch, or Mashable. However, I'm constantly impressed and flattered to find out who reads SVW. It's not about numbers of eyeballs, but who those eyeballs belong to, and I'm glad that they belong to some very key people, people whose influence is global.
And its this community that Dave belongs to -- hopefully he'll be back sooner than later.
- - -
[I'm in Paris as part of the Traveling Geeks, a group of journalists, bloggers, and PR people meeting with French startups and attending the LeWeb09 conference.]
Virtual tour of the Paris Hôtel de Ville (City Hall)
Why I'm Leaving (My Heart in) San Francisco | HPC
The quality of the French startups we have been meeting with all week, has been very good.
It seems as if the French can once again claim back 'entrepreneur' instead of it being sometimes derisively labelled as an oxymoron in the French context.
But it seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon and one that relies on a compelling mix of government programs and tax breaks. While many countries have tried to encourage the formation of startups through various incentives, the French appear to have gotten the mix just right.
It wouldn't surprise me if in the near future, some US startups might choose Paris as a headquarters because of some of the advantages they can gain here, compared with an indifferent US government.
Kemal El Moujahid, CEO and Founder of Paris-based Teacheo, which provides a platform for online tutoring and collaborative tools, is a good example of a top quality French startup, of a type that we've (Traveling Geeks) I've been meeting with over the past three days.
Mr El Moujahid was born in Morocco, studied Information Technology in Paris, and has an MBA from Stanford university. He says that the French government has done a lot over the past few years to encourage entrepreneurs.
"There are a lot of programs that help startups raise funding, find office space, help hire people, and also fund research and development," he says.
About four years ago the French government began a series of programs to encourage innovation.
Here are some of the things it did:
- There is a French tax that is levied on wealthy individuals based on their net wealth, it is separate from tax on income. However, if they invest in a startup, they will receive a 75% tax credit. "That means that an investment of 100,000 euros costs them just 25,000 euros," says Mr El Moujahid. Because there is very little VC activity in France, this has become the main source of funds for startups.
- There are many government and city-run incubators. We visited the Paris Reunion Incubator, which specializes in digital media companies. It has 20,000 square feet of space housing 25 startups, fully wired with lots of shared office support services.
Startups pay just 500 euros per month for a 4-year lease. (I have a video interview with Martin Geurin, the manager (Chef de Projet) of the Reunion Incubator that I will post later.)
- France has the best research tax credit in Europe. Companies receive a 50% tax credit in their first year, and 40% in their second year.
- It is very easy to start a company. There is an 'auto entrepreneur' web site, and an almost one-click process that handles the paperwork and issues tax id numbers, etc.
- There are many government agencies that provide a variety of services to startups, such as HR.
But there are still some archaic obstacles in various sectors that seem to punish online companies, says Mr El Moujahid. For example, there is a 50% tax credit offered to parents that hire a tutor for their children but this does not apply to online tutors.
Also, there are cultural issues that can make it difficult to hire people, says Mr El Moujahid. He explained some of the issues:
- Top graduates tend to want to find a job with a large company rather than a startup. There is considerably less status in working for a startup. This is changing to some degree especially because of the slow economy.
- Hiring can be tough. Some candidates want to be paid considerably more than they would be paid at an equivalent job at a large company because of the risk in working at a startup, and they don't see much value in stock options. "Those candidates eliminate themselves," says Mr El Moujahid.
- Firing people is near impossible. They can sue their employer and always win a favorable judgement. "The best way is to negotiate a departure. You can tell them they have permission to apply for jobs while still working for you." This also works both ways, it is difficult to leave an employer in the lurch and take IP with them to a competitor, he says.
- Being fired from a job can be a good thing for an entrepreneur because they can receive two to three years unemployment at almost full salary and they are allowed to build a business during that time.
- Identifying yourself as an 'entrepreneur' doesn't have a great standing in some circles. But that is changing and the poor economy is creating new entrepreneurs across all age groups as conventional jobs dry up.
Mr El Moujahid says that he misses the 'can-do' attitude of SIlicon Valley. "Every US startup wants to takeover the world and they tend to be much more optimistic than in France. Sometimes that optimism is misplaced, they want to fight Godzilla with a plastic spoon - but the enthusiasm is great. In France, people are less ambitious and they focus on more modest goals."
He adds that sometimes there is distrust of the ambitions of entrepreneurs, a pursuit of money is viewed with suspicion.
Also, there isn't much room for failure. Unlike in the US, where entrepreneurs can fail many times and be concerned better for the lessons learned, French society is much less forgiving.
Is it easier to build a startup in the US?
"This is a question I often discuss with my American and French friends. I'm not sure. There are a lot of government programs and tax credits that make things easier here. But the US offers a larger market, access to capital, and a much more supportive culture for entrepreneurs."
"I think that learning how to build a startup is what's important and that that experience can be applied anywhere. At some point I know I will return to the US and apply what I have learned here."
[I'm in Paris all this week as part of the Traveling Geeks, a collection of journalists, bloggers, and PR people meeting with French startups and also attending LeWeb, France's premier Web 2.0 developer and business conference.]
I'm bowled over by the French startups and entrepreneurs I've been meeting the past two days. Lots of passion, energy, smarts, and great ideas.
I'm totally surprised because I had a totally different expectation. France has a reputation for bureaucracy ( a French word), for strikes, (the taxi drivers were on strike on Tuesday), and for archaic attitudes such as a strong belief in a maintaining a work/life balance, six-week vacations, a 35-hour week, and making it near impossible to fire a worker (you will receive as much as three years full salary if you are fired).
It seems amazing that France's economy hasn't shattered into pieces by now, and the country hasn't fallen below the waves of the ocean as a modern day Atlantis.
Instead, France has the highest labor productivity levels of all the G8 nations. And the quality of its entrepreneurs (another French word) is excellent.
I will be writing in more detail about some of the companies and people I've been meeting, later this week. And I'll be diving into why there is such a great current of innovation happening in France.
The French model might even become a template for other countries. That's because people from other countries are coming to France to set up their startups. Other countries risk a brain drain if they don't act to create a similar environment.
I'll let you know tomorrow about some of the reasons why France is enjoying an upswing its startup communities. I think you will be as surprised as I was.
[I'm in Paris all this week as part of the Traveling Geeks, a collection of journalists, bloggers, and PR people meeting with French startups and also attending LeWeb, France's premier Web 2.0 developer and business conference.]
[I'm in Paris all this week as part of the Traveling Geeks, a collection of journalists, bloggers, and PR people meeting with French startups and also attending LeWeb, France's premier Web 2.0 developer and business conference.]
I took the EuroStar train from London on Sunday afternoon and in less than 3 hours I was in the middle of Paris. That trip always amazes me and it is so much nicer, (and greener) than flying.
When I arrived it was raining off and on but that didn't matter because I was back in Paris after a ten year break.
I had to find my hotel, about a couple of miles from my terminus at Gare Du Nord but being short on cash I decided to walk in roughly the right direction, trundling my wheeled travel bag across cobble stone streets, and relishing being in one of the great cities of the world.
Because it was Sunday, there wasn't much traffic and there were few pedestrians, it was a rare and almost private experience.
I rattled along, enjoying the old buildings, and noticing the wonderful street names such as Lafayette, in honor of the heroes of the American revolution. And Place Stalingrad, and lots of narrow streets and tiny squares named after many heroes from many countries.
At times it seemed as if the entire city were dedicated to the memory of all those that had struggled for liberty, equality and fraternity... I loved it.
Near enough...
I managed to get to within 200 yards of my hotel on Rue Roy before I gave up and asked for directions. I was quite proud of my zig zag route sans Google maps or any other navigational aids...
That evening I met up with my fellow Travelling Geeks. Eliane Fiolet, publisher of the excellent gadget news site, Ubergizmo in San Francisco, and a native Parisian, picked out a modest little restaurant for dinner.
There were about 20 of us, half local French geeks and entrepreneurs. And it wasn't long before it felt as if we'd all known each other for years, laughing, showing each other family photos, and comparing notes about life in Paris and Silicon Valley. Yet another miracle of shared food, shared experiences, ... and wonderful red wine.
Monday monday...
Monday was a very full day, lots of meetings with French startups, lots of presentations by French geeks. I'll have more to say about some of the great business ideas we came across in later posts, but right now, I wanted to say how similar the Parisian geeks are to our Silicon Valley geeks.
They have the same way of dressing, the same way of talking about technology, the same passion, the same understanding of the issues we think about and talk about all the time in Silicon Valley.
Even though we sometimes struggled with each other's broken French and English, it was remarkable how much we still shared a common language, and how much we understood each other. We all spoke Geek, this was our lingua franca.
I had a similar experience in the summer when I was with the Traveling Geeks in London and Cambridge.
It's as if there really is an international fraternity of geeks, a common culture that celebrates innovation, and transcends language and borders. And that's very encouraging...
(Please return for more Paris diary posts all this week.)
- - -
Here are some photos from Renee Blodgett, our tireless Traveling Geeks organizer Renee Blodgett:
Traveling Geeks Kick Things into Gear in the Marais
Also, I wanted to thank Eliane Fiolet for all her work in making this trip possible.
You can follow the whole gang on Twitter with the hashtag #TG09.
met with my fellow Traveling Geeks
I'm heading to Paris for the Le Web conference next week then spending the rest of December in London.
I'll be attending Le Web as part of the "Traveling Geeks" [misspelling deliberate], organized by Renee Blodgett. Also on the trip: Eliane Fiolet, , Robin Wauters, Kim-Mai Cutler, Frederic Lardinois, Matt Buckland, Sky Schuyler, Jerome Tranie, Ewan Spence, David Spark, Olivier Ezratty, Cyrille de Lasteyrie, Amanda Coolong, Beth Blecherman, and Phil Jeudy.
Le Web is Europe's premiere conference and organized by Loic Le Meur, from Seesmic.
Loic has done a great job pulling this conference together. And there's a helluva lot of familiar Silicon Valley faces lined up for the conference: LeWeb'09 Speakers | LeWeb'09.
As much as I love these people I'm hoping there will lots of chances to meet and report on European startups, VCs and others.
Loic has done a great job because he lives over here, not far from me in San Francisco. He is part of the community. That's why he can get a lot of famous Silicon Valley people over to Paris.
This is also why startups from all over the world are relocating to the Silicon Valley/San Francisco area, you get great access to people, events, and money.
Starting next week I hope to bring you some original coverage of Le Web and also from London.
- - -
Here is some of my Traveling Geeks coverage from a few months ago, the summer of 2009, when we visited London and Cambridge:
Behind The Scenes - Traveling Geeks 2009
Innovation And Culture - Reflections On My UK Trip
UK Diary: Friday - Cambridge Startups
UK Diary: Friday - Cambridge - The Innovation Capital Of Europe
UK Diary: Thursday - SVW Goes To The Europas . . .
UK Diary: Thursday - Ecoconsultancy At Shakespeare's Globe - Why Innovate?
UK Startups Look For Funding And Escape From Echo Chamber
UK Diary: Tuesday - Back To Soho and Dinner With Agency.com
UK Diary: Tuesday - Guardian Newspaper Media Panel . . .
UK Diary: Monday - The Geeks Eat Dinner At The Top Of The World
UK Diary: Monday - Reboot Britain - The Traveling Geeks Help Out
UK Diary: Monday - A Meeting With Intel's Government Guy
Some of the Traveling Geeks - photo JD Lasica
I spent much of July in the UK with the "Traveling Geeks" a group of journalists and bloggers meeting with leading European startups.
JD Lasica, the tireless organizer of the trip, recently put together a list of our favorite tools and apps: Coolest power tools of some top geeks.
With so many choices out there, I'm always fascinated by what others are using. Personally, I try to use as many cloud based apps as I can so that I can work from any computer, mine or maybe yours. Here's some favorite Traveling Geek apps, please see the original post for full list:
My recent trip with the Traveling Geeks to the UK was an intense week consisting of many events and meetings with European startups, government agencies, conferences, panels, and some remarkable experiences.
My son Matt joined me part of the way through. In this video you'll see my fellow Traveling Geeks and friends: Robert Scoble, Rocky Barbanica, Renee Blodgett, Ayelet Noff, Sarah Lacy, JD Lasica, Meghan Asha, Craig Newmark, Susan Bratton, Jeff Saperstein, Howard Rheingold, Sky Schuyler, Mitzi Szereto, Heddi Cundle, Mark Adams, Paul Carr, Hermione Way, Mike Butcher, Mathys van Abbe . . . and many more.
[BTW, the Facebook video embed is so much better quality than YouTube and many other video sites.]
I just got back from the UK spending much of my time with the Traveling Geeks, a group of leading Silicon Valley bloggers and journalists meeting with UK government agencies, UK tech companies, and startups.
It was a very good trip. Here are some notes:
- There are some well established UK startups with good business models and they are profitable. One example is Seatwave.com, which trades show tickets between fans. Spotify and Spinvox are also doing very well. Are they still startups if they have a business model and are profitable?
- Startups face the same problems as those here - funding. There are very UK VC firms and few angels. One estimate I was given was that in the Cambridge area there was just 5 million pounds ($8.26m) available for VC investments. A puny amount. Some startups are seriously considering relocating to the US for better access to investment capital.
- Successful European entrepreneurs have a tendency to go sailing and not come back. But that's not always true. I met some serial entrepreneurs in Cambridge: Stuart Evans, chairman of Novacem, a developer of a unique type of "green" concrete; Richard Green (photo), CEO of Ubisense; the very impressive Sherry Coutu, (photo)a rare woman serial entrepreneur and one of the hosts of our Cambridge tour; also Steve Kennedy from Nettek.
- Cambridge Innovation. The area around Cambridge University is known as Silicon Fen and represents the European innovation capital. There is more money invested in innovation in this region than anywhere else in Europe. A key part of this infrastructure is the organization Cambridge Angels. I met a couple of the Cambridge Angels (Stuart Evans and Richard Green.) It's an impressive organization with an interesting portfolio.
Friday afternoon the Traveling Geeks visit Cambridge Consultants and visit the William Gates III building for meetings with researchers from Nokia Labs and Microsoft Research Labs (MRL).
Cambridge Consultants has helped bring to market products such as:
- Virtually waterless washing machine
Low cost cellular base stations.More here.
The Microsoft Research Labs are part of the academic community at Cambridge university and the work is open and peer-reviewed. In the video our guide is Cambridge university lecturer and successful entrepreneur Jack Lang, also Ken Wood, deputy director of MRL, Tim Regan, Research SDE at MRL, and presentations from their colleagues. The video also shows some of Microsoft's research projects.
Friday and the Traveling Geeks are in Cambridge, the innovation capital of Europe.
After presentations by Cambridge university representatives and also from government agencies helping startups, the Traveling Geeks take part in a panel and also hear presentations from local startups:
- Alert Me
- Taptu
After a hard-packed day of visiting with Cambridge startups, government agency representatives, Cambridge tech incubator, meeting with Nokia research labs, meeting with Microsoft Research Labs - and punting on the river Cam, the Traveling Geeks are invited to dinner at Peterhouse College.
According to my excellent guidebook "Cambridge Colleges" by Janet Jeacock, Peterhouse College features one of the finest collections of Pre-Raphaelite stained glass, by Morris, Burne-Jones, and Madox Browne. It is the oldest of all 31 Cambridge University colleges, founded in 1284.
As the rest of the TGers are shmoozing on the lawn, my son Matt and I explore the building. We're hoping to find some ghosts. Please see the short video above.
Next: More Cambridge innovation. . .
It's Friday Morning and it's an early 7.30 am start for the Traveling Geeks...
JD Lasica is the unsung hero of the Traveling Geeks. He has invested hundreds of hours in organizing this trip.
By Friday morning, his normal patience-of-a-saint is evaporating as he attempts to herd the TG cats into a coach that is far smaller than expected.
Plus, my son is with me this morning so space is even tighter. And on top of everything, last night was a late night and we are all still a little groggy from the grog and the good times at the Europa Awards (please see: ).
Soon, however, we are on our way to Cambridge and the start of another jam packed day. It's a gorgeous day, not too hot, as we drive through the English countryside, the yellow and green fields and billowing clouds set against an azure sky.
It doesn't take long before we are in the Pitt Building in Cambridge, the site of Britain's oldest publisher. And the very impressive Sherry Coutu is running a very tight meeting with presentations from several government agencies and university representatives.
Next: Another panel and we meet Cambridge startups...
Next on UK Diary: The Traveling Geeks become the Punting Geeks as Cambridge, the innovation capital of Europe, hosts with great style and class.
UK Diary so far:
It's Thursday evening and the Traveling Geeks are at the Europa Awards to celebrate European startups.
The place is already filling up when I get to the venue for the Europa awards in south London. Things don't look good because I have just one invite and I have my son Matt with me and my friend Heddi Cundle. And security is very tight -- they are turning away everyone without a ticket (it's a $100 entry).
Thursday afternoon the Traveling Geeks are at The Swan, which is attached to the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe theatre on the Southbank.
The event is organized by Econsultancy , a digital marketing firm, and led by Ashley Friedlein, CEO and Co-Founder (See my photo above.)
There are about a hundred people gathered in a large room. I'm sitting at one of several tables, crowded with people and bottles of water, and we're talking about innovation.
Thursday morning the Traveling Geeks head to Accel Partners, one of the top European VC firms, to hear presentations from:
Following lunch with Skype, the Traveling Geeks have the rest of the day off.
I spend a good chunk of my free time posting and catching up with my online persona. Then I'm off to the Southbank Centre for a cup of tea and a couple of glasses of wine with some friends from my university days.
In the evening Renee Blodgett invites me to "Calendar Girls" at the Noel Coward theatre just off Piccadilly Circus. Robert Scoble and his sidekick, producer Rocky Barbanica, join us part of the way through the play.
Afterwards, Renee complains of a scratchy throat and heads back to the hotel. (We learn later that one of the panelists at the Guardian media event the prior night came down with swine flu. Renee and fellow Geekettes were sitting in the front row.)
Robert and Rocky head off for a taste of the old country (McDonald's) then come back and join me for late night drinks with an old pal from San Francisco now living in London, Heddi Cundle (@HeddiCundle).
I like to say that Heddi makes you dizzy. After the initial shock of contact it doesn't take long before they are big fans of the Cundle experience.
After closing down one pub we walk the cobbled streets over to Covent Garden where we find another one that's still open.
The next morning, a rather slower moving Robert says to me "I'm blaming you!"
Don't miss Thursday on UK Diary: The absolutely mental experience of the "Europas Awards." All hail Mike Butcher!
It's Wednesday and all we have on the Traveling Geeks schedule today is lunch with Skype then we get the rest of the day off. Phew!
That's a welcome break after our hit-the-ground-running start to our trip since Sunday.
Even better, lunch with Skype is in our own hotel.
I wander down into the basement dinning room of the Malmaison hotel and sit next to Sky. Already, he has accumulated several of our laptops and wireless comms dongles, and is trying to figure out some of our connection problems.
I pay particular attention as he attempts to debug Susan Bratton's dongle because I have the same connection problem.
Renne Blodgett says that top executives from Skype were scheduled to join us but had to rush off at last notice for a board meeting. I wonder what's brewing.
Renne Blodgett has an interview between fellow TGer Robert Scoble and Skype's top blogger Peter Parkes.
Renee Blodgett interviews Peter Parkes and Neil Dodds, Windows Experience Manager at Skype:
[Being a Traveling Geek takes stamina. I challenge any traditional journalist to keep up with our daily agendas. Not only are we interviewing people and staying up late writing, editing video and posting but we are also being interviewed by others, taking part on panels, and reporting on the same panels, and taking part in lots of other inside-out media activities.]
Our fourth event for Tuesday was dinner with Agency.com and assorted clients and friends -- in Soho at Soho House. It was great to be back in this vibrant part of London because this is where I got my start in journalism in 1982.
It was a great place to work and a great time to be a young man around town, with plenty of small bars, restaurants, cafes, and after-hours clubs.
We sat at a very long table and we introduced ourselves and spoke briefly about what it was that attracted us to social/new media. I managed to get video of most of the replies, my apologies because I missed a couple of people.
Please also see Susan Bratton: DishyMix: Susan Bratton Podcasts & Blogs Executives
We left BT and managed to hail a few black cabs amid the rain and made our way over to the Guardian newspaper for a panel on the future of media.
I was thinking that maybe the death of newspapers is just nature's way of helping us all to reduce our carbon footprint.
Some of our fellow Traveling Geeks were on the panel, our Geeketes were at the front of the room, which must have had a distracting effect (see photo - by JD Lasica) while the rest of us were mostly at the back Twittering onto a big screen at the front of the room.
Tuesday afternoon with the Traveling Geeks and we are over at BT HQ seeing half-a-dozen presentations from its business units.
We were a little wet from dodging torrential rain bursts. But the afternoon sessions are interesting.
(Photo Susan Bratton.) Tuesday morning the Traveling Geeks were at Seed Camp. I couldn't make it but here are some of our reports:
I missed the first event of the day for the Traveling Geeks because I was hunting local shops for an Ethernet to USB converter as I, (and we collectively) struggled with Internet connectivity issues.
Sky Schuyler was our resident IT support guy and fellow Traveling Geek. He has the patience of a saint. Every morning we'd dump our laptops, BT dongles, and cell phones in his lap and beg him to perform his particular form of magic and get them working and connecting again. He has unlimited patience and good humor -- it's no wonder that he was chosen by the Dalai Lama Foundation to be its Chief Technology Officer.
(Photo by Susan Bratton from the post: "Communication is how we connect to others at a deeper level," Jim "Sky" Schuyler)
Please see: BT Openzone Wireless Broadband - Sky's Blog
Monday evening the Traveling Geeks were invited to dinner in the 384 ft BT Tower, which used to be known as the Post Office Tower when I lived in London. It has a revolving restaurant near the top and has been closed to the public since 1980.
It was a rare honor for us to be hosted by BT CEO Ian Livingston and his top team of managers. This giant European Telecom is quite a surprise, very innovative and very aggressive. You might expect the opposite. Yet it is the US telecoms companies that appear slow and Luddite in comparison.
The innovative energy is sparked by strict European Community regulations that ensure a level playing field for competitors. This is unlike the US system, which seems designed to prevent new competitors from entering markets and results in telecoms companies that turn-off mobile phone functions and control what applications and services can be offered.
Monday morning several Traveling Geeks take part in the Reboot Britain conference organized by NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts).
Howard Rheingold:
The day starts with an exercise in cat-herding, with the whole crazy crew piling into three London taxis. Try putting any five of those rather strong individual personalities into an enclosed space and "intense" is the only word for it.
... It was the first time I had spoken publicly about a subject I've grown passionate about - 21st Century Literacies. You know you've hit the mark when people are still sitting at the end of the last session of the day. I finished speaking, acknowledged warm applause, sat down -- and people kept sitting. So I got back on stage and fielded questions for another 20 minutes. Thank you, London, for making my day!
Monday morning the Traveling Geeks are off to the Reboot Britain conference organized by NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts).
But first we have breakfast with Tristan Wilkinson, Intel's Director for Public Sector for EMEA.
Renee Blodgett:
He tells us about a program called One Goal which will be launched in August and piggyback off the South African World Cup. The goal is to get 30 million online signatures in an effort to help make poverty history. Take note: 75 million children still don't have access to primary school education in the world.
Mr Wilkinson said he wasn't much interested in technology but what technology could do for people and for countries in terms of improving the quality of life through better economic opportunities.
By Sunday all of the Traveling Geeks had arrived and checked into our hotel, Malmaison (Bad House?) in Charterhouse Square close to St Paul's cathedral.
Fellow TGer Craig Newmark had discovered that we were living above an old "plague pit" where tens of thousands of bodies had been buried in 1384. Maybe this was why we were all to suffer from terrible Internet connection problems throughout our stay?! It would be cool if our wifi were haunted, and ghostly pictures would be uploaded to our flickr accounts during the night.
I was running late to our first event of the trip, a Tweetup in the fashionable Chelsea district. By the time I got there, it had spilled into the street and I saw my colleagues chatting with people, interviewing or being interviewed.
I met a lot of entrepreneurs and had many excellent conversations. Funding was a common theme, the lack of it. Very similar to Silicon Valley.
(Photo by Craig Newmark.)
- - -
I was interviewed by Micha Benoliel from Digitrad which has a cool service offering one point of access for all your voice communications. Here is a discount code if you'd like to try it out: VIP69007.
Tom Foremski - Digitrad - Traveling Geeks from Micha Benoliel on Vimeo.
You can also see interviews with fellow TGers here: http://vimeo.com/channels/digitrad#5489395
Next up: Monday - Reboot Britain and dinner with BT at the top of the 381 ft tall Post Office Tower - a revolving restaurant closed to the public since 1980 and once blown up by the IRA.
Please see: UK Startups Look For Funding And Escape From Echo Chamber
It's been a fascinating and exhausting week on the Traveling Geeks tour. The best part has been our visit to Cambridge, the innovation capital of England. I've got lots of material to post from our trip, all this week, so please check back regularly.
One highlight of the trip was on Saturday night. My son Matt and I were looking for a place to eat. We just happened to choose one of the favorite spots for Professor Stephen Hawking. It was a huge honor to be in the same room as Britain's top scientist.
The photo shows his two blond assistants helping him with his high-tech wheelchair.
Tuesday evening our third event that day for the Traveling Geeks (but not the last) was to take part in a media debate at The Guardian newspaper's offices in north London.
The Guardian is one of the UK's largest newspapers and its media section is superb -- anyone that is anyone in the media industry reads it, and anyone that's interested in media -- reads The Guardian's media section.
It was a very good turnout for the event despite horrid downpours. Part of our TG gang (Robert Scoble, Sarah Lacy, and JD Lasica) were on the panel discussing the future of media with the Guardian's Emily Bell, and the BBC's technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones.
It was a good discussion but it felt very "2005" in terms of the subjects, which kept returning to blogger/social media versus mainstream media.
The Butcher of Fleet Street
I was sitting at the back of the room next to fellow TGer Craig Newmark of Craigslist. And inevitably, the panel's moderator couldn't resist asking him to stand up and explain himself for killing the newspaper industry.
Craig is mightily fed up with this question. And I agree. It is not his fault that the newspaper industry is in trouble. But Craig handled it all very well, throwing in a line "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition," which drew laughs and distracted the panel from further pursuit of a tired line of questioning and drew the discussion back to the favorite subject of the day: Twitter.
From Back To Front
It was fun publishing from the back of the room and having our Tweets projected onto a big screen in the front of the room.
Here is the evening's Twitstream.
And here are my contributions:
I've been meeting a lot of UK entrepreneurs as part of the Traveling Geeks trip and I'm hearing a lot of the same things US startups tell me. They are looking for funding and also fed up with seeing the same people at their meetups.
Funding is a big problem in the UK because there are very few European VC funds actively investing. And very few angels. Many startups are looking to the US for funding but they tell me that most US VC firms have closed their UK offices.
One entrepreneur told me: "We're thinking of relocating some of our team to San Francisco so that we can be closer to the VC firms. Several VC firms have told us that they love our product but we are not over there. And so they wouldn't consider investing."
That was a common theme: that US VCs won't invest in startups unless they are in Silicon Valley.
I didn't have the heart to tell people that even if you are in Silicon Valley funding is really tough right now.
Traveling Geeks: Monday morning we met with Tristan Wilkinson, Intel's director for public sector, EMEA Region. His main interest is how technology can be used to improve countries' economies and improve the quality of life for people through work opportunities.
He posed an interesting question: Do the people that enjoy the benefits of the digital economy have an obligation to help those that don't have the same access and skill sets?
The way the question is phrased doesn't invite much debate because it shoots straight for the moral high ground.
This week I'll be in London and Cambridge as part of the Traveling Geeks tour. We'll be meeting with various UK companies and organizations.
I'm particularly interested in the startup culture here in the UK and how it differs from Silicon Valley. I'm always looking for what makes Silicon Valley different from anywhere else and why it is so difficult to create Silicon Valley-like regions around the world.
Clearly, to create a sustainable center of innovation it takes more than building a business park around a university and injecting some startup capital. The answer must lie in the culture of Silicon Valley. But can that culture be exported? Do regional innovation centers have unique cultures specific to their particular brand of innovation?
Maybe I can find out some answers during this trip.
Also, I'll be posting about some of the companies and personalities I meet during this trip. So please check back regularly. Also, you can follow my colleagues on the Traveling Geeks website and Twitter -- and if you get a chance, join us at some of the open evening events. Here is our agenda.
Here is a brief overview. We'll be at...
A NESTA-sponsored conference about moving forward in the new economy, a U.S./U.K. Speed Date with Seed Camp Winners and UK Leaders; eConsultancy Innovator's Open Discussion; the TechCrunch Europa Awards; University of Cambridge's Judge Business School Roundtable on Open Innovation; as well as meetings with Nokia Labs, Microsoft Labs, East of England International, Skype and others.
The blhttpoggers will also be speaking and participating at a Reboot Britain event and the Guardian's first Media Talk Live event, as well as organizing a TweetUp in central London on the evening of July 5, 2009, which is being sponsored by NESTA and The Conversation Group.
My Twitter is: http://twitter.com/tomforemski
My Friendfeed is: http://friendfeed.com/tomforemski
Twitter hashtag for the trip is #tg2009
Fellow Traveling Geeks:
I'm looking forward to the Traveling Geeks trip to London. I'm leaving next week and we will spend a few days in London and then Cambridge, meeting with local startups and larger tech companies.
I'll be particularly interested in how the startup scene differs in the UK compared to here. I keep coming across companies that are moving here, or at least having co-HQs here. Over the next few months I'll be profiling these Silicon Valley debutantes in a special section. So please let me know if you, or a company you know has recently moved to the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area. And also if you'd like to publish a guest post on why you moved here. More on this later...
In the meantime, here is our agenda for the London trip, come join us at one of the events.
Also on the trip is:
[Wrapping up the week in three dots . . .]
. . . Congratulations to Mike Arrington's TechCrunch on its four year anniversary. I went to the celebration at the TechCrunch offices in Palo Alto and had a really nice time, connecting with a whole bunch of people, some I hadn't seen in a while. There was Gabe Rivera from Techmeme, and I got to meet his "chief reporter," Atul Arora (@Atul) who seems to have become Gabe's human powered algorithm for choosing hot posts. (Some pics courtesy of the ubiquitous Brian Solis here.)
. . . Congratulations to Robert Scoble's Building 43 launch. It's a new online community sponsored by Robert's employer Rackspace. I went to the launch (combined Techcrunch birthday party) with and it was good to see Rocky Barbanica, Robert's long-time sidekick and camera operator-producer-editor. It turns out that Rocky was the one that introduced Robert to the Rackspace people. I'm looking forward to spending time with them both on the upcoming Traveling Geeks trip to London in early July.
. . . Uber-marketeer Guy Kawasaki seems puzzled why his Alltop automatic post aggregator isn't more popular in this post: The new economics of entrepreneurship. He goes on to point out that this is a great time to be an entrepreneur because nearly everything is nearly free, including talent.
Sorry, I'm not a warm and fuzzy guy, but the truth is that there are lots of talented people who are unemployed or under-employed right now. If there was ever a time to get great people for free or cheap, this is it.
Also, marketing is nearly free too:
Sucking up to bloggers takes effort and swallowing your pride, but it's not expensive.
Is that really all it takes? It sounds very 2005... Plus, Mr Kawasaki employs a couple of people to Twitter for him under his name which doesn't sound cheap.


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Desperate Housewives star Drea De Matteo has one important item on her to do list these days: "I have to make another baby fast," the 37-year-old actress tells USA Today. "I'm old, so I need to work fast."
Drea and fiancé Shooter Jennings, 30, are parents to nearly 2-year-old Alabama Gypsy Rose, whom Drea calls her "idol".
"Everyone thinks she looks exactly like Shooter, but she looks exactly like my baby pictures. But in life, she looks exactly like him now," says the former Sopranos star. "She's wild. She's the most amazing. People think I'm crazy, but I really do believe I might have made the most important human being alive. Her personality is unbelievable, and she's so smart."
Drea also goes on to say that her baby gets to visit her on set and run around her trailer: "She's back and forth and crazy and coloring all over the place. This week, I'm bringing her here because I feel like I haven't had a chance to see her."
"This is a perfect job," she adds. "I work maybe three days a week. I'm really lazy."
Drea is currently filming Desperate Housewives in LA but admits she is homesick for the East Coast: "I'd love to get a New York show," she says. "That's my goal and dream."


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T Trueblood, C Faine and DT Price out; WR Parker doubtful; LB Hayes questionable
The Bucs will have a patchwork offensive line against the Arizona Cardinals.
As expected, starting right tackle Jeremy Trueblood will miss Sunday's game with a knee injury. James Lee, who finished last week's game against the Rams, will make his first career start. He has appeared in seven games with Tampa Bay.
With center Jeff Faine still out with a quad injury and guard Keydrick Vincent waived Friday, Jeremy Zuttah will start at center and Ted Larsen, the former North Carolina State and Palm Harbor University High School standout, will start at left guard.
Linebacker Geno Hayes returned to practice Friday but is listed as questionable even though coach Raheem Morris expects him to play.
Running back LeGarrette Blount (illness) practiced Friday, fullback Earnest Graham (hammy) and cornerback Elbert Mack (foot), cornerback Aqib Talib (calf) and tight end Kellen Winslow (knee) are probable. Receiver Preston Parker (knee) is doubtful. Defensive tackle Brian Price (hip) is out.
"We played it last week with these three guys,'' Morris said. "They're going out there. We've been accumulating depth on the offensive line the whole time throughout the season, trying to get people there and these situations will come. I've been talking about the 61 (players) strong (53 active roster and 8 practice squad), and we'll get a chance to show that. We'll have James Lee get an opportunity. Larsen got his last week and some of these other guys are getting better and better and Zuttah is moving into center. Here we go men. Let's get ready to play.''


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Up 'n' coming Hollywood hotties we'd love to be lip-locked with this V-Day
Valentine's Day is almost here, yippee! This day is all about red 'n' pink, yummy treats and spreading some love. But don't sweat it if you're swingin' it single this Feb. 14, because we've lined up some of the soon-to-be-big names into our dream list of V-Day dates. Who are you currently crushing on?
Who's your dream V-Day date, and where would the two of you go? Share your Cupid Day fantasies in the comments below.
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A man charged with assault after a man was stabbed to death in an Auckland suburb early on New Year's Day is now facing a murder charge.
Peter Job, 39, was remanded in custody without plea until another court appearance next month when he appeared in Auckland District Court on Thursday.
He was initially charged with assault after handing himself in to police the day after Nathan Albert was found dead outside a Panmure house.
The Papatoetoe 27-year-old died from stab wounds after being found on Pilkington Road about 4.20am on January 1.
source: newshub archive


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European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865: A Summary Catalogue
The Gubbio Studiolo and Its Conservation. Vol. 2, Italian Renaissance Intarsia and the Conservation of the Gubbio Studiolo
Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 2, Venetian School
Italian Renaissance Frames


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Australia crushed India by 87 runs, securing their spot in the Tri-series finals and effectively knocking India out of the competition.
The win came as Michael Clarke was announced the winner of the 2012 Allan Border Medal for the nation's top cricketer of the 2011-12 season.
Shane Watson was welcome return to the Australian squad and became Australia's third captain in as many games, as Clarke missed another match due to injury. It was Watson's first game since November and notched two wickets for just nine runs in his return.
It came after Australia won the toss and elected to bat first, registering 252 runs for nine wickets in 50 overs. Watson made just 1 run but David Warner (68), Matthew Wade (56) and David Hussey (54) put forth more than gallant efforts to give the home side a very respectable total.
Controversy struck when Hussey, on 17 at the time, used his hand to shield an incoming fielded ball from hitting his body as he sprinted towards the wicket. Indian captain M.S Dhoni appealed the moved for "obstructing the field" but after a lengthy period the third umpire dismissed the appeal on the basis that Hussey was merely protecting his body from harm.
Searching for his 100th international century, Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar was yet again denied in another controversial situation. Tendulkar left the pitch waving his arms at Australian bowler Brett Lee who had unintentionally blocked the batsman's way to the crease as he was run out by Warner.
No Indian batsman managed more than 26 runs and they found themselves all out for just 165.
India will have to thrash Sri Lanka and achieve an additional bonus-point whilst at the same time hope that Australia also defeats Sri Lanka in order to make an appearance in the final.


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In the Community
D.C. Handgun Ban Sparks Discussion
Just hours after the House voted to ease gun restrictions in the District of Columbia, advocates on both sides of the controversial issue gathered at the Kay Spiritual Life Center Wednesday to debate whether firearms encourage or deter crime.
Armed with statistics and anecdotes, George Lyon, one of the six original plaintiffs challenging the D.C. handgun ban, and Daniel Vice of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence spoke as part of the Table Talk Lunch Series.
Arguing that District residents have a 1.5 percent chance of becoming the victim of a violent crime each year—three times the national average—Lyon contended that, in the right hands, "firearms are a tool that can save lives."
The founder of Capital Gun Owners, which formed after the Supreme Court struck down the city's 32-year handgun ban in June, Lyon advocates the "right to defend life and home." He supports background checks, training, and education in order to promote responsible gun ownership. In the wake of the recent tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, he also supports the right of professors to carry concealed weapons in the classroom.
"Guns are a tool. They can be used for good, and they can be used for evil," said Lyon, a practicing attorney. "The fact is, a firearm in the hand of a citizen facing a violent attack can save that citizen."
Arguing the other side of the issue, Vice had some statistics of his own.
Last year, there were 75 gun homicides in England; in Japan, there were only 56. In the United States, however, there were more than 30,000 gun-related deaths last year.
"That means, in a typical weekend, more people are killed by guns in America than in other industrialized nations, combined," said Vice, an AU alumnus. "Would you really feel safer knowing everyone around you is carrying a gun?"
The Brady Center advocates stricter background checks and "common sense gun laws" that will keep weapons out of public spaces, including schools and churches, and out of the hands of children and criminals. The group also seeks a ban on military-style weapons.
Vice, who's represented victims of gun violence, said it's a gruesome business.
"No parent should ever have to see what a bullet does to a little boy's head," said Vice. "Nothing in law school prepared me for that."
Chief Cathy Lanier of the D.C. Metropolitan Police was also slated to speak at Wednesday's event, but cancelled on Monday. City officials have been instructed not to comment on the issue while policies are being adapted in response to the recent Supreme Court decision.


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wraith king im dead joke
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PRZOOM - /newswire/ -
McLean, VA, United States, 2007/03/27 - Endeavor Security Inc., an Early Warning and security Knowledgebase company and Lofty Perch Inc., a global leader in security technology for industrial control and SCADA systems, today announced a partnership - LoftyPerch.com.
Endeavor Securitys flagship technology, the FirstLight Early Warning and Signature Service, will be used to provide real-time attack detection and signature generation for the LoftyPerch security management suite.
Endeavors market leading FirstLight pattern recognition algorithms will be used to recognize previously unseen threats in control system networks and refine the Endeavor global knowledgebase.
Network security intelligence and warning is at the core of our solutions suite, says Mark Fabro, CEO of Lofty Perch Inc, Leveraging the Endeavor FirstLight technology and early warning system enhances our ability to protect our clients systems, maintain thought leadership in the control systems community, and continue to deliver the unique security intelligence solutions that is so richly needed in the control systems domain.
"The relationship between Lofty Perch and Endeavor Security represents two strong leaders in their respective fields combining their strengths to address a serious security problem. We have been interested in identifying technology leaders in the control system security space who best suit our FirstLight engines and can leverage our market leading knowledge base. Lofty Perch is the ideal partner for Endeavor, said Christopher Jordan, CEO of Endeavor Security. There are very few companies today with the depth and experience required to reduce the cyber risk in large-scale industrial systems.
Lofty Perch will immediately begin offering joint products and solutions to the market as the companies continue to work on research and development in industrial control systems security.
About Endeavor Security
Endeavor Security (endeavorsecurity.com) provides a global Early Warning Service and a software knowledgebase to security device vendors. We produce timely and accurate security knowledge in the format that our customers can leverage to reduce costs, create depth, speed time-to-market, and to understand threats. Endeavor is an independent source of security knowledge, producing application detection, network antivirus definitions and malicious network signatures to multiple product vendors. This service enables the OEM vendors to concentrate on their core product technology differences, accelerate their release cycle, and be competitive in their early releases. Endeavor provides its technology to security product vendors and managed service providers for critical infrastructure including Government agencies, Financials, Telco/ISP, Utilities and Energy companies. The FirstLight suite of products are focused on new threats and the ability to stop them using advanced, Patent Pending algorithms. The FirstLight sensor grid includes government and commercial entities.
About Lofty Perch Inc.
Lofty Perch, Inc. (loftyperch.com) is a global leader in providing cyber security solutions and services to government and private critical infrastructure organizations. Working with Idaho National Laboratory and DHS Control Systems Security Program doing Cyber security assessments, training, and developing recommended practices to industry, Lofty Perch Inc. is a privately held company founded in 2005 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with US offices in Los Angeles, California.
Agency / Source: Endeavor Security, Inc.
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Bucs sign receiver Mike Williams
Syracuse receiver Mike Williams waited four rounds to finally be selected by the Bucs.
But Williams became the first player in the team's 2010 draft class to sign Friday.
Williams signed a four-year deal, the Bucs announced in a release. Terms of the contract were not disclosed, but it's believed to be worth $3.15-million.
The Bucs selected Illinois receiver Arrelious Benn in the second round, but Williams is considered a first-round talent. His stock dropped because he left the Syracuse team with three games to play after missing curfew for the second time in 2009.
Williams said he instructed his agent to reach an agreement quicky so he could continue to compete for a starting job. Only 20 draft picks had signed league-wide as of Friday afternoon.
"I love this game, so I urged my agent, Hadley Engelhard, to reach an agreement quickly,'' Williams said in the release. "I am focused on the opportunity to contribute to the team and am very excited to be a Tampa Bay Buccaneer.''
In addition, the Bucs released guard Michael Shumard, claimed off waivers from Denver last month.
During his time with the Orange, Williams caught at least one pass in 27 consecutive games and recorded 20 touchdown receptions in three seasons.He caught 60 passes and scored 10 touchdowns in seven games last season.
Williams has been competing for a starting job and drawing raves from coaches during OTAs. He is battling Benn, Michael Clayton, Maurice Stovall, Reggie Brown and Sammie Stroughter.


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I'm getting "failed to get user" (with and without sudo)
$ sudo /etc/3DxWare/daemon/3dxsrv -d usb -v
3DxWareUNIX = V1.2.7, ID 2994
$ sudo /etc/3DxWare/daemon/3dxsrv -d usb -debug
[2007-05-20 18:32:13] 3dxsrv.c,647: displayname = :0
[2007-05-20 18:32:13]
[2007-05-20 18:32:13] 3dxsrv.c :: startupCommandLine(), authGetUser(), failed to get user
[2007-05-20 18:32:13] Error: 3dxsrv.c :: startupCommandLine(), authGetUser(), failed to get user
$ sudo /etc/3DxWare/daemon/3dxsrv -debug -firmware USB
[2007-05-20 18:32:34] UdDev: Opening USB device on USB port /proc/bus/usb/002/016
[2007-05-20 18:32:34] UdDev: SpaceNavigator opened
[2007-05-20 18:32:34] UdDev: Opening SpaceNavigator device on USB port /proc/bus/usb/002/016
[2007-05-20 18:32:34] snav_usb.c :: UdDevRezero(): Rezeroing the device
Device = SpaceNavigator
Firmware = V3.18
I did an ltrace and I see a sequence where the /var/run/utmp file is being scanned with setutxent/getutxent.../endutxent, some of the netutxent calls are followed by calls to strstr() with ":0" as the second argument. It looks like it's trying to find the login record for the user on the first X display. When it scans what looks like the correct utmp record, I see this (my login is jbm):
20380 strstr(":%\001Kjbm", ":0") = NULL
It looks like something is not understanding the format of the 384 byte per entry (on my system) utmp file properly or possibly the struct the getutxent function is returning. Maybe the output of who should be parsed instead of, or as a fall-back to scanning the utmp file.
My system is Debian unstable, kernel is 22.214.171.124, glibc is 2.5


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Timothy Geithner
In other news, White House economic advisers reported Thursday that stimulus efforts have already created or saved more than 1 million jobs. Also, the Labor Department reported that first time unemployment claims fell last week. Continue reading
Editor's Note: For the next week, we'll be featuring video conversations here on the Business Desk with one of our favorite economists, Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, now at the Peterson Institute and MIT, and author of … Continue reading
Foreclosure filings in the United States jumped in July, again setting a record for the third time in five months. The increase was due to falling home prices and the recession, which kept some homeowners from making payments or refinancing. Continue reading
"In Fed We Trust" author David Wessel discusses how the central bank reacted to the financial crisis and its changing role in setting U.S. and global financial policy. Continue reading
Fewer than 8 percent of eligible borrowers have successfully modified their mortgages under a $75 billion federal plan aimed at halting home foreclosures, according to a Treasury Department report. Jeffrey Kaye reports on the early struggles of the program. Continue reading
The United States and China ended two days of high-level talks Tuesday, pledging to improve cooperation on economic and security issues, including on policies aimed at economic recovery and international non-proliferation agreements. Continue reading
At a forum in Kansas City, Mo., Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke discussed the central bank's actions in handling the economic crisis, saying he did not want to be the Fed chief who "presided over the second Great Depression." Here is the full transcript of the forum, which was moderated by Jim Lehrer. Continue reading
Three federal government officials charged with reforming the U.S. financial system testify Friday in front of the House Financial Services committee who should become the nation's top consumer watchdog. Continue reading
In other news, President Obama stepped back from comments he made concerning the arrest of prominent black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Democrats in the House of Representatives agreed on a plan for cutting Medicare growth. Continue reading
Fed chief Ben Bernanke told a Senate panel on Wednesday that economic recovery should begin soon, albeit slowly at first. A financial analyst and a lawmaker speak with Ray Suarez about the testimony. Continue reading


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Mental Health
Have Mental Health Questions? Ask a Psychiatrist Online
I have a 26 year old stepson who just graduated with honors from the New York School of Visual Arts, but who was diagnosed with "bipolarism" last February. He had a 'manic episode' which resulted in being hospitalized for 10 days in a pschy ward. He was placed on some medication (I don't know the name but he says it is not primarily an anti-depressant) ) and told to take 'it as needed'. He takes it about 3 times a week. He has become extremely depressed, sometimes he says even suicidal, is convinced he has no talent at all, will never get a job, (he has just received a temporary "menial" job) and keeps repeating a mantra to his mother that he is useless, an idiot, his brain does not function at all well, he can never hope to find a woman, a good job, a decent living et., etc., Meanwhile he reads Nietzsche for entertainment, but says he doesn't fully understand him, (in support of his self proclaimed stupidity). I have known him for 5 years, my own IQ is over 140 and I have regarded him as smarter than I am in many ways. As a lay expert in psychology I diagnosed his need to keep repeating that he is useless as a need to feel good about himself by blaming his 'condition' for his situation as opposed to 'himself'. Knowing that and believing that. has helped reduce his uncontrollable lamentations about how incompetent he is. Questions: 1. Are there "degrees of bipolarizm'? 2. Can truly bipolaristic people self medicate as in 'take a pill when you feel you need one'? 3. Is this condition permanent? 4. Can any more be done than provide the strongest possible emotional support and follow the psychiatrist's instructions with regard to medication? 5. Is it fair to say he is very likely to get better and function at a high level, as do many other with his condition?
HiCustomer My name is***** and I am willing to work with you to help identify some solutions you may want to consider to resolve your issue
Let me ask some additional questions before I respond to the ones you have posed.
First, Is your stepson currently seeing a mental health professional besides the Psychiatrist who prescribes the medicine?
Second, does your stepson live with you and his father, or with his mother, or is he independent living by himself or others?
Third how long has he been in this depressed state, and has it occurred before? Does he cycle through the manic and depressed stages of Bi-Polar and if so, is it a pendulum swing or abrupt?
It appears you are not in the chat area... I will switch this to Q & A so you can respond at your convenience.
I don't think he is seeing anyone but the psychiatrist.
My step son (Call him A) lives in New York. He rents a room from a friend and right now has no income at all. His mother (D) lives with me in Florida in an oceanfront condo. His mother and I have been together for 5 years and I support her. She works and supports him and has been since the beginning of 2013.
He comes to Florida every 2 months or so and stays with us. He just left for NY after a 3 days stay here.
As far as I know he has been somewhat depressed from time to time, but no more than might be viewed as 'normal'.
He stands 6'-1" is not overweight and is good looking.
He has what I call (in a book I wrote called Relationship Power 2010) a good physical 'society grade'. Meaning he is an attractive and well spoken man. (No reason for depression here)
Did you not get my answer? I'm still waiting to hear from you.


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Maserati Ghibli readies for battle
Tripling your annual production is simple if you're only making one or two cars a year. But when you're talking about a number running into five figures, things get complicated.
Currently Maserati has two model lines, a saloon and a coupé/convertible. In order to reach its target of 50,000 annual sales and more, the famed Trident from Maranello will need all the help it can get from Fiat and Ferrari in order to stretch that product portfolio to five model lines: new Quattroporte, Gran Turismo and Gran Cabrio line, a sportscar to slot in beneath that, an SUV as conceptualised in the Kubang we saw two years ago at the Frankfurt show, and this, the new baby Quattroporte.
Straight away there is a problem. Maserati is calling its entry-level family saloon, to be officially unveiled at the Shanghai motor show, the Ghibli. As in Ghibli, the two-door sportscar line that made it through two generations and a total of 13 years in production.
It's almost as sacrilegious as a BMW M3 suddenly turning into a saloon-only body style. Oh, hang on a minute… Anyway, the original 1973 Ghibli epitomised everything that's wonderful about Italian sportscars, with its Giorgetto Giugiaro styling and V8 engine up front.
The second-generation Ghibli coupé appeared two decades later in 1992, based heavily on Pierangelo Andreani's Eighties' Biturbo design, itself influenced
by Giugiaro.
So Maranello, continuing its bonkers recent naming strategy, could've come up with plenty of other monikers for the new baby Maser without desecrating the graves of its glorious models past — Maserati LaMaserati comes to mind. Or taking another page out of Enzo's book; Maserati Alfieri...
Other more serious tags also make sense such as Maserati Berlina (that means saloon) or the Maserati Infinito (come on, doesn't it look like an Infiniti?) Maserati Economico (it'll be cheap), Maserati Picollo (it's small-ish)… [Ed: OK, that's enough Google Translate.] But we'll all just have to get used to Ghibli, which is at least still somewhat evocative and sticks to company tradition in that it's actually the name of a wind.
Maserati has long had a custom of labelling its creations after winds, such as Bora, Karif, Khamsin and Mistral. In fact, Ghibli should go down well in the Middle East since it is the Arabic word for a Saharan hot wind. But that doesn't mean the car itself is a load of hot air.
This baby Maserati is a proper executive saloon targeting rivals like the Audi A6, BMW 5 Series, Jaguar XF and Mercedes-Benz E-Class. It's touted to be even sportier than the Quattroporte, which is already one of the sportiest large executive saloons on the market.
Maserati will initially make the Ghibli available with a choice of two turbocharged engines, one diesel and one petrol. The 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 that concerns us is the same as the one in the new Quattroporte, mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission to deliver power to either the rear axle or all four corners.
In the flagship saloon this V6 is worth 410bhp and 550Nm, good enough for 0-100kph in 4.9 seconds and a top end of 285kph. Hmm, OK, if that's the case with the Ghibli, they can call it whatever they want…
Ghibli heritage
Giorgetto Giugiaro is normally associated with ItalDesign, but when he designed the beautiful, low, sleek, original Ghibli he worked for Ghia. The Ferrari sportscar rival came in coupé or roadster form with a 335bhp V8 engine.
The Biturbo is the black sheep of Maserati's history, with notoriously poor reliability and shoddy build quality. The second-generation Ghibli was based on it, powered by a twin-turbo V6, with less than 2,500 models produced in total.


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Historical Britain
Stonehenge is a Bronze Age monument from about 2000 BC. The standing stones came from Wales-over 320 kilometers away! They stand up to seven meters high in a circle. About 90 meters away from the circle there is another stone and on midsummer's day the sun rises exactly over it. But why did the ancient Britons build Stonehenge?
William the Conqueror began building the Tower of London after Norman invasion in 1066. It stands next to Tower Bridge. The tower in the centre is called the White Tower. It has got a bloody history. They execute many people there, including Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII. Some ravens live in the Tower. According to the legend, when the birds escape, the monarchy will end. Today you can visit the Tower and see the Crown jewels. Hadrian's Wall ran across the north of Britain between England and Scotland. It was originally five meters high. The Roman emperor, Hadrian began the wall in 120 AD to protect the province of Britannia from the tribes of the North. The Roman army finally abandoned it in ì383 AD. There were many small castle and towers in the wall and soldiers could send messages quickly when there was an attack. Today there are some museums next to the wall-they show things the Romans left behind. The Houses of Parliament are in Westminster in London. King Canute built a royal palace here in the first half of the eleventh century and there were meetings of the English parliament here from the thirteenth century. In 1605, some young Catholic men decided to destroy the Houses of Parliament and kill the Protestant King James I. they got some gunpowder and put it in a cellar under Westminster Palace. But the King discovered the plan and on the 5th November, he sent soldiers to the building. They found one man, Guy Fawkes, and they executed him. Nowadays in Britain, on the 5th of November, people build bonfires and have fireworks.


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I am sure we all saw that former flame thrower Kerry Wood retired last weekend.
Which is fine, I suppose, but somehow or other, there seemed to be a big fuss around Wood's final performance. And I wonder where celebrations like this started, and why Kerry Wood, who certainly tantalized, and then proceeded to essentially disappoint for ten years, got to be a big deal?
Wood did log a decent enough career, going 86-75, 3.67, with 63 saves over 14 years. Plus, he also logged an excellent 1582 strikeouts over 1380 innings.
However, only twice did he pitch more than 200 innings, which is pretty pathetic in the Rich Harden sense as a starter. And, after being injured in 2004 after 140.1 innings, he never tossed more than 66 innings again over the course of a season. True, when he did log 66, it was in 2005 as a starter, and Wood was then a reliever and at best average closer (his best year was 2008, when he went 5-6, 3.26 with 34 conversions), and really only managed two such years in that role.
Largely injuries were the problem, and which Wood did make a splash as a young fireballer, striking out 20 in a game and tying the record for that accomplishment in nine innings, that is pretty much it.
But, baseball is littered with fireballers with promise who were injured for one reason or another and had their careers short circuited. Herb Score, for example. Or Mark Fydrich. And, neither of them left the game with any fanfare.
Similarly, as I look at the Baseball Reference page on Wood, the arms he is compared to are Bob Bolin, Diego Segui, Moe Drabowsky, and Don Larsen: all decent enough pitchers with ok careers, but nothing worth stopping a game and bowing to.
When Steve Carlton retired, I don't remember any fanfare, and should Kevin Millwood or Mark Buehrle call it quits, after much more dependable careers, I cannot imagine anything special either.
Sadly, I think Wood's retirement was just another piece of the "what might have been" department, rather than the "look at what he did" one.
And, that does not really merit any more attention than it already got over the past 14 years.
Not that good.


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An investigation by News 2 found helmets deemed marginal in reducing risk of concussions were being used in public schools.
Virginia Tech tested 23 adult football models and used a star system to rate the helmets based on the its ability to reduce concussions.
Helmets rated with five stars were considered to be the best at reducing concussions, while those with one were considered to be marginal.
News 2 obtained helmet inventories from school districts across Middle Tennessee and compared the helmets in use to the helmets tested by Virginia Tech.
The majority of helmets in use were rated at least three stars, with 213 helmets coming in with four-star ratings and 130 helmets coming in with five-star ratings.
In Metro Nashville Public Schools, however, 35 helmets were rated with two stars and another 2 with one star.
MNPS' Athletic Director Roosevelt Sanders told News 2 the district is phasing out all helmets rated below three stars.
"We generally encourage our coaches to purchase the four and five star helmets," he said. "We work closely with our coaches to provide them with the best possible helmets."
Each year MNPS sends all of helmets to Riddell to be reconditioned.
"What they do is inspect the outer shell of the helmet for scrapes, for cracks and the inner part of the helmet," Sanders said. "There is also a disinfecting that is done to clean the helmet."
Sanders said the factory also checks all the padding inside the helmet and looks for any defects with how the helmet is constructed including the facemask.
"There are things that have been put in place in purchasing equipment to upgrade not only the athletic programs of metro schools but also raise the awareness of safety," he said.
MNPS has also had a long partnership with Vanderbilt's Sports Medicine Department. VSMD provides athletic trainers at all of MNPS' high school football practices and football games to be on hand in case of injury.
The trainers also conduct baseline tests for each student athlete at the beginning of the year to be able to quickly recognize the signs of a possible concussion.
The trainers have the ability to remove a student athlete from a game or practice if they suspect the student has a concussion or other injury.
VSMD has also conducted its own study of football helmets that is awaiting publication.
"There are certainly a lot of questions when it comes to the long term effects of concussion on long term health and brain health," Dr. Alex Diamond said. "Right now there is no good scientific strong data that links concussion to these long term effects."
Dr. Diamond is a pediatric sports medicine specialist at VSMD.
"The level of research surrounding concussions over the last five to seven years has really exploded," he said. "Not only in the quantity but the quality of the research so we are starting to get some answers to questions we didn't really have answers to several years ago."
The issue of concussions and their long term effects has garnered national attention because of recent assertions by former NFL players who said concussions during their professional careers have led to lasting neurological damage.
On July 7, a federal judge approved a settlement that calls for the NFL to pay out around $870 million in compensatory damages and attorney's fees to settle complaints by more than 4,500 former NFL players.
The settlement put in place a formula for retirees to receive compensation based on age and illness associated with brain damage.
"What is very important to point out is there is no such thing as a concussion proof helmet," Dr. Diamond said. "We don't have any method now to prevent concussions outright."
He continued, "Our main message we want to get out to families, coaches, summer leagues and high schools is awareness."
Dr. Diamond also said parents should make sure football helmets are fitted properly on their children to help prevent concussions.
"For any sport using the right equipment and making sure that it is fitted properly is really important," he said. "It is really important for all sports."
In January, a state law passed requiring all coaches to take an online class about concussions so they are educated on the signs of a concussion and what procedures to follow.


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If you haven't noticed already, direct messages don't seem to be working on rapists, men who shamelessly commit crimes against women, and men and women who in word and action support them. That's why one of India's most widely heard comedy podcast, AIB (All India Bakchod) created a sarcastic video to create awareness and send out a message that it's NOT a woman's fault and they DON'T ask for it.
The video features actress Kalki Koechlin and VJ Juhi Pandey who are funny and at the same time send the message across bang on! The video is about how we blame every sexual assault on the woman. Witty, clever and funny, this video will hit you hard.
Related Articles -
Lingerie-Clad Mannequins Lead to Sexual Crimes?
Readers Speak: Faster Verdicts for Crimes Against Women
Main Accused in Nirbhaya Rape Case Hangs Himself. You Say?
Follow us on Twitter for all updates, like us on Facebook for related stuff


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A x02220 Bm - 224432Standard guitar tuning:EADGBENo capo
B - x24442 C♯m - 446654C 032010 Em - 022000 D x00232 F♯m - 244222 G 320033 G#m - 466444 B♭ x13331 Gm - 355333
B♭ F♯m Bm G[Ronan] B♭Turn down the light, F♯mturn up the radio BmTheres a fire in your eyes, Gand it's keeping me warm BHold on to meF♯m like it was yesterday BmWhen we both felt our spiritsC collide [Kate] B♭I remember the moment, beingF♯m struck down by lightning BmSince the first time I saw your Gface, and you smiled BCome and lay down with me, F♯mfill the space thats between us BmFeel the magic that keeps loveC alive [Both] GmThis time can beF♯m like the first time BClose your eyes and soF♯mon we'll be there B♭No man could eveBr guess what you're feeling Turn a spaF♯mrk to a flame, make a Bmwish, close your eyes, wonE♭mt you start CAll over agGain. [Ronan] Just like the first time that you touched my Emskin, (All over again) GI tasted heaven, take me therB♭e again, (All over again) Your smA♭mile Your touGmch Your taF♯mste It turns meBm on and C♯mon and onD That I fGall in love withA you All overD again [Kate] B♭Come and step through the stars F♯mTake a ride through the universe BmAs long as we're here let's take the whGole thing in [Ronan] BWhat I'm trying to say F♯mIs that you are so beautiful BmLet me say it all oCver again. [Both] GmCoz this time can be liF♯mke the first time CBlose your eyes, pretty soon wF♯me'll be there B♭No man could ever guess whBat youre feeling, Turn a F♯mspark to a flame, make Bma wish, close your eyes, woE♭mn't you start CAll over agGain. Just like the first time you touchEmed my skin, (All over again) IG tasted heaven take me B♭there again , (All over again) Your smiA♭mle Your touGmch Your tasF♯mte It turns meBm on and C♯mon and Don That I falGl in love withA you That I falGl in love withA you I keep falliC♯mng in love Bmwith you All over agGain D All over agGain D All over agGain D (song fades )
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