This week Nov 14-16 I’m conference-whoring managing investor relations at the Monaco Media Forum 2012 with VCs, startups and media, discussing the future of media, apps and technology over cocktails and canapés between panels, roundtables and breakout sessions.
Let’s hook up for a chat if you’re there!
Thanks to Daniel Cowen (@dwzc) of Echoer for inviting me!
W00t!
Yesterday I was in Oslo, Norway for the national Nordic Startup Awards where our startup Gauss – The People Magnet were nominated in three categories; Best Bootstrapper, Best International and People’s Choice.
I was amazed and humbled to take home your award, the People’s Choice Award. It means a lot to us to know that there is a lot of people like you out there who believes in us and find what we do meaningful. It keeps us going! Thank you so much!
So see you in the Nordic Startup Awards grand finals in Copenhagen, December 7th!
UPDATE: We’re back in control of the meetup.com group. Please note that no decision has been made to continue using meetup.com as the Hacker News Cologne community platform going forward. That’s up to you to decide at the next meetup. As Apple says, “We like to have options”.
Guys,
The rumors about our death are yet again greatly exaggerated.
In light of our meetup.com group being p0wned today, I thought I’d announce the next meetup here. It’s business as usual for Hacker News Cologne and we’re looking forward to see you all again at SolutionSpace on November 28th at 1900 CET. This time we’re relying on you and not meetup.com to get the word out. You know what to do.
We’re super excited to bounce back with a couple of awesome talks!
Kyle Ellicot (Head of Products, BigChampagne at Live Nation, Co-Founder and President of Heavy Cloud Media Group and Co-Founder of TechHustler) will be skyping in from the US to talk and take your questions, confession-chair-style.
And that’s not all! Greg Cooper, Y Combinator alum and Co-Founder of the awesome Interstate will also be joining us in the flesh to share some stories from his experience and take your questions.
At the next Meetup we’ll also discuss and decide an alternative community platform to meetup.com – which I think we can all agree left us somewhat wanting in security and reliability department, albeit rich on drama and adventure. Now you’ll get to decide where we go next.
As always, bring your own lightning talks and projects to show and tell and keep recommending new topics and speakers!
For now, we recommend avoiding meetup.com completely and staying tuned to the HNCGN Meetup organizers’ twitter accounts (@maikloewen @blacktar @francis_dierick) and blogs (http://www.maikloewen.com https://blog.vidarandersen.com and http://fr.anc.is/) for the latest news until we meet up again.
We also insist that no personal attacks be launched agains the hijacker of the HNCGN meetup.com group – Let’s show them what we’re made of by keeping it calm and clean.
Looking forward to see you all again at the next meetup!
Vidar & Crew
Our startup Gauss – The People Magnet (@getGauss) has been nominated for Nordic Startup Awards in no less than three categories: Bootstrapper, International and Startup of the Year! Wow! We’re humbled and amazed! Now I need your help by voting *every single day* until October 27th and spread and share the good word all over them Internets.
To vote, simply go to http://startupawards.co/startup/193, scroll down to below the video and click one of the “Vote” buttons with orange text below left – every day (new vote each 24h for you) for the next week.
Be advised that “liking” the page is not the same as voting for us, so make sure to hit those “Vote” buttons in orange *once every day* – and then return and “like” the page too for extra karma points! :) The red circle below shows where the “vote” buttons are located.
And then for more bonus karma points, remember to click the “like” button on the voting page *in addition* to voting. :)
You can additionally help by retweeting this tweet:
ZOMG! Our bootstrapped startup @getgauss is nominated in 3 categories for Nordic Startup Awards! startupawards.co/startup/193 We need YOUR vote! <3
— Vidar Andersen (@blacktar) October 20, 2012
Thank you!
About The Nordic Startup Awards:
An Award show like none before, Nordic Startup Awards is a series of events that happen throughout the region in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden to recognize and celebrate the startup eco-system based in the Nordics. All of the events will lead to a grand finale in Copenhagen in December 2012 to crown the startup kings and queens of the Nordic region.
The main purpose behind the event is to consolidate the Nordic startup scene and place Scandinavian startup ecosystem on the map as a leading center for innovation in Europe, against London and Berlin. We all know we do things here a little different. And probably a little better than others. This is an opportunity to show the rest of the world how vibrant our community is and how successful Scandinavian startup genome is.
Recently I was invited with our startup to the Campus Party – the biggest electronic entertainment event with keynotes from rock stars like Paulo Coelho, Yossi Vardi, Don Tapscott and Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
It’s no secret that I’ve been a fan of Yossi Vardi for some time, so it was only natural that I was camping out on a front row seat, eager to hear his keynote.
Then about ten minutes in, something unpredictably awesome happened; As I was answering Yossi’s question to “what’s keeping people from executing on their ideas?” shouting “FEAR OF FAILURE!” out loud from the crowd, Yossi told the keynote audience that I should perhaps hold the keynote instead of him and then proceeded to let me pitch Gauss to his whole keynote audience! Needless to say I was pretty gobsmacked.
Watch it as it happened:
This kind of spontaneous generosity completely blew my socks off and caught us totally by surprise!
So thank you, Yossi – I’m incredibly humbled and grateful! You are even cooler than I imagined. I hope we meet again sometime in the future. You rock! :)
Here’s a bonus interview with Dr. Yossi Vardi from CP Europe 2012: