While I'm a fan of politics (and my wife and I are active supporters of causes and candidates we believe in), I've never been particularly "political" and generally don't find myself at political speeches, rallies, etc.  But last night when I had the chance to head over to the Democratic National Convention being held here in Denver, I figured that it was something worth seeing in person. I wasn't disappointed - it really was an amazing scene.

I managed a tour of the press area courtesy of VC Adventure reader Elliot S., who was there working for NBC (broadcasting live over their temporary DS3 set up specifically for the convention). It was pretty unbelievable to imagine what needed to happen to bring together the number of broadcast agencies in one place (ranging from NBC and CNN to Al Jazera).  The picture below shows some of the cabling that was put in place over the last few months to run all of this.

To say that security was tight is an understatement. The entire area around the Pepsi Center was completely cordoned off - you needed a credential to get within about a half a mile of the facility. There were literally thousands of cops (at least the ones you could see) - many in full riot gear, some with sniper rifles. I also noticed that they were taking pictures regularly with digital cameras (especially at the protestors who were just outside of the gated entry points to the grounds).  The pictures below don't do justice to the enormity of the police and secret service presence, but give you an idea of what it was like (both of these pictures were taking inside the gated area).

I know there was a lot of consternation on the part of some of the groups who were demonstrating at the convention that they wouldn't get enough access to the delegates, but from what I saw most delegates arrived from downtown by foot (there were a few tour busses, but not many) and had to pass through the protest areas (which were filled with people expressing their views on various subjects) before entering into the secured area.

Inside the arena was electric. The Pepsi Center holds something like 18,000 people at an average hockey or basketball game.  There were significantly more delegates than I had expected - their seating took up the entire floor and the first level of arena seating.  I had a floor pass and wandered around to find the combination of a good vantage point and a spot where I could stand without getting kicked out by DNC staffers.  It took me about 5 minutes to realize that I had managed to situate myself right next to the CNN floor platform and about 5 feet from Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, James Carville, etc. (see photo below).  From here I had a great view of the stage and could also turn around to get full view of the crowded auditorium.  I realized the power of the crowd as the flags came out for President Clinton's speech. The crowd was screaming; the flags were waiving - it was pretty amazing. Despite the crowds, I was really taken by the intimacy of the event (at least from where I was standing).  Clinton in particular had the ability to really make you feel like he was talking directly to you. 

I won't wax political on you, since there are a ton of sites you can visit to see coverage of the speeches themselves, but I relay the following reactions:

• Bill Clinton is an amazing speaker.  His speech on the floor on Wed reminded me of why he was such a popular leader - he has an amazing ability to make every person in an arena of 18,000 feel like he's talking just to them.  All I can say is WOW.
• If John Kerry had shown the fire that he showed in his speech from the floor last night he would have run away with the 2004 election - hopefully a reminder to the Obama camp not to play it too soft.
• I expected more from Joe Biden. I understand that this was his "introduction to Joe Biden" speech, but I wanted to see him hit McCain harder and show a little more offensive fire (hopefully we'll see more of that in weeks to come).
• One of the very best speeches came from Tammy Duckworth, an army helicopter pilot who lost both of her legs in Iraq. She now runs the Illinois VA system.  Forceful; direct; spoken from an experience that few of us can even think to imagine.
• Of course the highlight of the evening was the appearance of Obama himself - the man inspires confidence.
• The convention was extremely well coordinated. Signs were passed out in perfect timing and in great numbers; media seemed to always be in the right place; even with the long lines, entry into the event was pretty reasonable and efficient. 

I was pretty wowed by the entire experience - certainly once in a lifetime for me. Hopefully this post gave you a little taste for what it was like.  A few more pictures from the floor follow.

Long overdue, but here's an account of my recent bike ride from Denver to the top of Mt. Evans (elevation 14,264 ft) and back.

First some quick technical and summary data in case you've found this post looking to do a similar ride. I ride a lightspeed titanium bike with a standard front crankset (39/53) and a slightly climbing friendly rear cassette (13/27). The ride up took us 7 1/2 hour (ride time) and covered some 10,000 feet of climbing over 72 miles. While that's a lot of climbing, the gradient actually didn't kick up much past about 8% (and for most of the climb from Idaho Springs was more like 6%). My training had been pretty modest - I ride about 50 miles a week, including a hill ride at least every other week - and this ride was probably about 2 times the length (and difficulty) of any other ride I had attempted (which is to say that if I can slog it up - you probably can too).  I twittered my entire ride up, which turned out to be great way to keep my wife and friends informed of our progress while on route. The ride profile (until the battery on the GPS went dead) looked like this:

Below, for those that care to read on, are more details and some pictures of the ride. I rode with a friend - Walker Fenton - who has been making an annual tradition out of this trip for the last few years (and who planned the route for us).

4:00am, Denver: Rolled out of Wash Park and through downtown Denver, stopping at the "mile high" step at the state capital (I'm sitting on the step in the picture below). Temperature was a pretty comfortable 60 degrees, although the ground was still pretty wet from the torrential downpour the night before.

5:47, Lookout Mountain: We had made the trek out of Denver and were at the top of Lookout mountain by sunrise -some 20 miles of mostly flat riding in at this point.  We definitely had some strange looks from the few groups of people who appeared to be ending their night out drinking by watching the sun come up over Denver.

Our route took us over Lookout mountain and up through Genesee. For the most part we stayed off of the major highways, however the small exception was a few unpleasant miles on I-70 from the Buffalo Overlook to Evergreen Parkway (which thankfully only took a few minutes).  From there we took the frontage road over Floyd Hill and down to Kermit's where we hopped onto the old HW 6 (which is now a bike path) which took us all the way to Idaho Springs.

7:42, Idaho Springs: By breakfast we were 40 miles in and had reached Idaho Springs where we stopped for some coffee and a burrito. From here it was to be about 30 miles straight up to the top of Mt. Evans.

The road out of Idaho Springs isn't particularly steep, but it climbs steadily uphill some 15 miles to the fee station for the Mt. Evans road.

10:06, Mt. Evans Road Fee station: Turns out that even on a bike you have to pay to get to the top of Mt. Evans ($3 for each of us). It was pretty amusing to wait in the line of cars to pay to get to the top part of the road.

11:51, Summit Lake: It's 9 miles from the fee station to Summit Lake and for me these were the longest miles of the trip (and as you can tell from the time gap, we stopped several times, including a long snack break, on the way up).  The grade wasn't that steep (probably about 6%) but with some 60 miles on my legs and over 5 hours in the saddle, it seemed interminable at times.  My body felt off and I found it really hard to keep my energy up (I was eating on the entire ride at least every 30 minutes - but at this part of the ride it wasn't providing the boost I was looking for).  Making it up to Summit Lake I was elated that I was almost at the top, but a little fearful for the 5 hardest miles of the trip. I'm pretty tired in this picture taken at the lake (in case you can't tell!)

I was wrong about those last 5 miles.  For me, at least, the increase in grade actually made the riding easier.  The views were spectacular - at times it felt like we were riding to the top of the world (see the picture below).  With the steeper gradient came more frequent switchbacks and the air at 14,000ft is noticeably thinner when you're peddling along.  My body perked up and I was keeping up a great rhythm.  I think the storm that appeared to be rolling in pushed us a little harder as well.

12:51: Summit at last!:  What a great feeling as we rode through the parking lot, literally to the end of the road. We were 7 1/2 hours of riding time into our ride (about 9 hours total elapsed time with stops and food breaks). The odometer read 72 miles and we were about 9,000 ft higher than when we started out that morning.

1:33, off the summit: We literally flew down the Evans road (trying to avoid getting stuck up high when the storm hit).  I like going downhill and you can really burn down the straights (thanks to some new break pads which quickly slowed me down as I hit the switchbacks).  At the fee station we turned right and headed up and over Squaw Pass (just couldn't resist some more climbing).  Just as we crested the top of Squaw the skies opened up and we were hit by a classic Colorado rain and hail storm.  With the hail pelting us and pretty much soaked to the bone, we negotiated down the back side of the pass (trying to strike that elusive balance between going fast enough to make it down quickly, but not so fast that the hail pelting us in the face was going to do serious damage).  I wish we had taken the camera out during the storm, but we were just too focused on getting out of the rain and cold.  Eventually we managed to move past the weather and by 3:40 had made it to the relative dry ground of Evergreen.

4:19, Morrison: For us, Morrison was the end of the line.  With the storm bearing down on us again and the prospect of 20 more uncomfortable miles on wet city streets back into downtown we decided to call in the sag wagon (Walker's wife Michelle) for a rescue. 

Final Ride Stats: 122 miles; somewhere around 12k of climbing; 10 hrs ride time; 12 1/2 hours elapsed time.  It was an amazing ride - I'm looking forward to next year's already!

I've written before on effective board communication, how to run effective board meetings and other "governance" topics related to companies and their boards of directors. Today's post is a little more ethereal.

I've noticed a real difference in how various CEO's I work with refer to their boards - particularly when talking internally to the rest of their management teams and employees.  On the one hand are the CEO's that consistently refer to their board of directors as "The Board" (capital "T", capital "B") and often use them as some kind of foil (as in "The Board has said that we really need to do XYZ") - almost separating themselves from whatever decision or direction it is that they wish to convey and treating the board as some kind of amorphous entity like the borg in Star Trek.  On the other had are CEO's that more often refer to the board by their individual names, including themselves in the list as well. It's obviously much harder to absolve yourself of responsibility for a decision if you speak in this fashion. It's also much more difficult to use the board as the foil (since "Seth, John, Jamie and Susan" sounds a lot less threatening than "The Board").

What's interesting to me as an observer of this behavior is not just my obvious preference for communication style, but for what a predictive marker it is for other behaviors that I also care about.  CEOs that treat the board as individuals rather than a single entity are more likely to seek meaningful advice and counsel from their board members, are universally better at board level communication and have board members that tend to be more involved (in a good way - at least in my opinion) in helping solve day to day business challenges.

Something to think about as you plan for your next company meeting...

As you know, I'm a big fan of Twitter.  I've even gone so far as to call it the new IM.

My wife Greeley has watched on with some amusement as I've twittered my life away over the last year or so.  She finally sat down this weekend and read a few months of my tweets.  What follows is a note she sent to me - an "if I'd been twittering too" list of tweets (to be read with heavy sarcasm; I was laughing out loud, but maybe it's just me...).

Woke up in a shitty mood, PMS?
Contact lenses dry and itchy, off to buy SALINE!
Sale at Safeway on seedless grapes. Nectarines look good, too.
Made peanut butter sandwiches for girls.
Using my new Kenmore vacuum. I'm way more into the canister than the upright.
Defrosting ground turkey for dinner. Meatloaf or burgers? TBD.
I'm concerned that twitter is affecting my ability to blog regularly. Anyone else concerned?
New episode of Mad Men tonight. Weekly struggle with watching on release night or waiting for HD format...
I know I did something today that will interest and impress my followers. Just thinking.

Information tracking company Filtrbox has put out a handy little widget for tracking TeamUSA at the Olympics.  By choosing both sports (for example: "USA Cycling - Men's Road") or an individual athletes ("USA Cycling - Men's Road: Levi Leipheimer") you can keep up to date on your favorite Olympic stories.

Apologies for falling out of the blogging habit over the last month. A nice, mostly off-line vacation was followed by a few weeks of slowly catching back up.  Blogging (and keeping up on my blog reading as well) fell to the bottom of the list.

Or maybe I was just being lazy.

Either way, I was off the blogging circuit for a while and I apologies for any of you who may have been waiting with breath held for the next post (hopefully you didn't delete me from your feed reader).

I'm back. With plenty to write about.

More soon.

My wife took me to kick-boxing class yesterday and if I was to be honest with you, I'd have to admit that I pretty much got my ass handed to me.  Kickboxing is HARD. This isn't athletic club kick-boxing.  This is Muay Thai kick-boxing at the local Thai dojo.  My wife's been going for months and is really good (and before you ask - yes, she can clearly kick my ass any time she feels like it).  She's been asking me to go for a while but I've resisted. Not because I didn't think it would be fun (and as it turned out it was even more fun than I thought it would be), but because I didn't know how to do it and I was seriously afraid of embarrassing myself (although as you can imagine, none of the excuses I used to avoid prior participation included this openness of reasoning).  Finally, having run out of good reasons not to go along, I acquiesced.  And it was great.  I had fun. I sweat (a LOT). I beat the crap out of my punching bag. I learned the proper way to kick and punch.  And occasionally I put it all together and actually looked like I knew what I was doing.

This post isn't really about kick-boxing, however.  It's about trying.  It's about putting yourself in situations that are uncomfortable or foreign and giving it your best shot.  I made a ton of mistakes in class yesterday.  And, as it turns out, didn't feel stupid at all.  To the contrary, I felt great for having made the attempt. At the end of class we warmed down with a few minutes of meditation and breathing exercises.  During this quiet time the instructor read a passage that started with the line "here we leave our egos at the door" and went on to talk about the virtues of challenging ourselves to our own level of ability and experience. 

I think it's often true in business that we are reluctant to try new things. To leave our comfort zones and branch out to new area. And - perhaps most importantly - ask for help. In business (and in life), its extremely hard to leave truly leave your ego at the door. But think about how much more we'd get done if we did...

I've been mulling over a few ideas in search advertising. Curious if anyone out there has come across any companies innovating in the search value chain (I'm thinking about things like Yield and Clickable). 

In case there was any doubt how far advertising on the Internet has to go, consider that The University of Phoenix is the single largest brand advertiser on the Internet (with some $20m in monthly spend, which is pretty minimal in the context of brand ad spending) and that Internet advertising per household (dollars spend on online advertising divided by total US households) was $288. Compare that with $818 on newspapers (or just over $1k on "direct telephone") (sourced from Mary Meeker's TechTrends June 2008).  We've got a long way to go, baby!

There are a couple of posts up this morning that I'd like to point you towards.

The first is over at Mendelson's Musings (written by my partner Jason Mendelson) that talks about our work with Nancy Raulston, our team's executive coach (direct post link here). I'm fortunate to work with a group of partners that believe (as I do) that part of building a great firm is building a strong foundation for communication and feedback. We take this work very seriously (starting with the 360 degree review that Jason describes and continuing twice a year at team off-sites where we Nancy facilitates a group review) and even base a portion of our compensation on this work (literally putting our money where out collective mouths are).

The second is today's post on the Foundry Group blog titled "There is no "I" in Foundry" which describes our team approach to running Foundry and contrasts that with the more typical venture firm.  While there wasn't a plan to release these two posts on the same day, they both point to an overall philosophy at Foundry that we are stronger and more successful investors as a group rather than as individuals.

For me these posts really highlight why I'm proud to be a part of Foundry and to call Jason, Ryan, Brad and Chris my partners.