Voter Access Network on the iPhone

VAN (Voter Access Network) was the center piece of my life for many months. Anyone who has worked in the Field Office for a democratic political campaign has probably used it. It is a powerful tool that enables very detailed and large scale outreach of various types along with very granular targeting. However, many of the processes around the VAN in a Field campaign create extra work. Creating lists, printing them, using those paper lists for voter contact, doing the data entry, and then properly disposing of the lists is one of the most time consuming aspect of Field effort. If this digital solution to that process existed then it might have been able to save me 2-3 hours each day (that is a lot when you are only getting 3-5 hours of sleep per day). It would probably have saved my volunteer team about 10-15 total hours each day as well.

Obama taught an army of followers how to talk to their neighbors, how to tell their stories, and how to take control of the election process. We were able to do this through sheer numbers and brute force, but as tools like this one make it easier to conduct meaningful outreach that is well tracked and targetted I hope we will see even more political engagement at the neighborhood level. I am sure there is a learning curve, but I am hopeful.

http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/its-van-mini

Influential Writing

I have read a few Paul Graham articles here and there but was always rushing through and never really gave them my full attention. But after a discussion with some friends over whether Yahoo is still a top level player I went back and read this essay. That essay linked to this one, a definition/celebration of hacker culture. I was really impressed by the persuasiveness of his writing (good thing I was using him to support my case on the yahoo argument). The hacker article made me launch straight into some MySQL practice I had been putting off! I think I will be setting aside some serious weekend time to dig into old essays.

First Round Capital Exchange Fund

First Round is one of the investors in VigLink (Google Ventures is another), so I have started watching them. Oliver, our CEO, was at the CEO/Founder summit last week, which sounded amazing. I was especially excited by this announcement of their new exchange fund. Josh Kopelman describes the benefits well,

"When I was an entrepreneur, I remember the feeling of having all my eggs in one basket -- and it is our hope that this fund will remove some of that stress.  Now our entrepreneurs can get the same diversified portfolio that our limited partners get (with better economic terms) and receive a financial benefit when other First Round Companies exit (even if their own company is still years away from an exit)."


I agree that mediating risk with this diversification removes a barrier to founding a company, but the thing that is most exciting to me about the exchange fund is the sense of community it must facilitate among the participating entrepreneurs. I have heard many blogs describe the process of starting a company as lonely and stressful, which it is. But for a carefully selected community of founders, which First Round's portfolio is, I imagine the potential for personal and professional synergy and coordination is massive!


See coverage here and here.

VigLink

I started my new job last week at VigLink! I am very excited for this opportunity, and the biggest reason is the people I now get to be associated with. I really like the team (we are 5), there is excitement about what we are doing and the atmosphere in the office is very focused and driven without feeling at all frantic. We have an exciting product, I am learning the industry, and ready to rock and roll! Check out some great press about the release just before I came on board. It is an all-star group of investors as well, see my post here about a cool initiative at First Round.