Thursday, August 14, 2008
Ron May speaks at SocialDevCamp Chicago, August 9, 2008
In a rare public speaking engagement, Chicago tech scene gadfly Ron May took one of the half-hour spots at SocialDevCamp Chicago 2008, on August 9, 2008. The event, styled on the BarCamp model of loosely-organized informal presentations and opportunities for techies and entrepreneurs to exchange ideas and hold impromptu working sessions. The SocialDevCamp event focused on Social Networking on the web.
May signed up to give a talk entitled “Lessons Learned from the Past,” but he primarily speculated on the potential for a new web-based resource for local tech entrepreneurs.
May said he was planning to present something akin to the “Andrew Keene meets Clue Train” debates. May is not a fan of Keene’s. He looked in The May Report archives for case studies of layoffs and for how people started communicating anonymously in 2001. Ultimately, he decided that a presentation layoffs would take too much time to prepare.
May took a new tack, “you know I’m trying to revamp The May Report.” He has been looking at models on the web. One site that was brought to his attention was “theFunded.com”, which May characterized as “trash your local VC firm”. This wouldn’t work for Chicago, as “our VC’s don’t do anything,” quipped May.
May sent a letter to some of the respected members of Chicago’s technology and venture communities, including Tom Churchwell, Ellen Carnahan, and Dennis Arial. Through an oversight, May’s initial correspondence didn’t include the web site name, but many of the people on his mailing list knew the site by description. The general consensus from the “knowledgeable sources” was that “we don’t need another bitch at the VC’s site” in Chicago.
May floated the idea of providing a “comprehensive list of sites that any entrepreneur needs to start a business, combined with a rich description of the resource, and its history including both successes and failures. May suggested including commentary on the people at the various resources: What they want – their criteria for success – what they bring to the table, and a list of historic deals. Chris Rollyson said this sounded like TannedFeet.com.
But, said May, “if there was a need for this, it would already have been done.” The problem is “nobody wants to be evaluated for their performance.” One of the VC’s in the audience, Nik Rokop, said “we are doing it internally.” May countered, “external review is a different thing.”
May expressed the opinion that greater transparency on both sides of the funding conundrum would help to alleviate what he perceives as the greatest problem facing the Chicago tech and entrepreneurial community: “the gatekeeper mentality.”
“It may not be bad to have gatekeepers, but we need to mitigate the dominance of the gatekeeper mentality.” VC’s only list their few successes on their web sites. They aren’t clear about their criteria for doing deals. By eliminating the “double-standard,” you create an opportunity for more deals to be done.
How do you get “officialdom” to buy into the idea of this sort of resource? You use “theFunded.com” as a “stick”. Give us transparency, insights into deals, what worked , what didn’t. If the VC’s cooperate, there won’t be a need to focus on the negative.
May said there were two issues with building such a community-based resource. First, it would take a lot of work. Second, it would involve some wrangling over politics. Ultimately, he said, a comprehensive directory and history of Chicago’s technology and VC community could be assembled. Chris Rollyson again recommended an existing site, Jigsaw.com.
Is some of this content buried in The May Report’s archives? “How many years do you have” to mine that data, quipped May. Besides, May insisted, “this wouldn’t be The May Report.” There’s too much baggage around the May report. This would be something different, perhaps something new.
May signed up to give a talk entitled “Lessons Learned from the Past,” but he primarily speculated on the potential for a new web-based resource for local tech entrepreneurs.
May said he was planning to present something akin to the “Andrew Keene meets Clue Train” debates. May is not a fan of Keene’s. He looked in The May Report archives for case studies of layoffs and for how people started communicating anonymously in 2001. Ultimately, he decided that a presentation layoffs would take too much time to prepare.
May took a new tack, “you know I’m trying to revamp The May Report.” He has been looking at models on the web. One site that was brought to his attention was “theFunded.com”, which May characterized as “trash your local VC firm”. This wouldn’t work for Chicago, as “our VC’s don’t do anything,” quipped May.
May sent a letter to some of the respected members of Chicago’s technology and venture communities, including Tom Churchwell, Ellen Carnahan, and Dennis Arial. Through an oversight, May’s initial correspondence didn’t include the web site name, but many of the people on his mailing list knew the site by description. The general consensus from the “knowledgeable sources” was that “we don’t need another bitch at the VC’s site” in Chicago.
May floated the idea of providing a “comprehensive list of sites that any entrepreneur needs to start a business, combined with a rich description of the resource, and its history including both successes and failures. May suggested including commentary on the people at the various resources: What they want – their criteria for success – what they bring to the table, and a list of historic deals. Chris Rollyson said this sounded like TannedFeet.com.
But, said May, “if there was a need for this, it would already have been done.” The problem is “nobody wants to be evaluated for their performance.” One of the VC’s in the audience, Nik Rokop, said “we are doing it internally.” May countered, “external review is a different thing.”
May expressed the opinion that greater transparency on both sides of the funding conundrum would help to alleviate what he perceives as the greatest problem facing the Chicago tech and entrepreneurial community: “the gatekeeper mentality.”
“It may not be bad to have gatekeepers, but we need to mitigate the dominance of the gatekeeper mentality.” VC’s only list their few successes on their web sites. They aren’t clear about their criteria for doing deals. By eliminating the “double-standard,” you create an opportunity for more deals to be done.
How do you get “officialdom” to buy into the idea of this sort of resource? You use “theFunded.com” as a “stick”. Give us transparency, insights into deals, what worked , what didn’t. If the VC’s cooperate, there won’t be a need to focus on the negative.
May said there were two issues with building such a community-based resource. First, it would take a lot of work. Second, it would involve some wrangling over politics. Ultimately, he said, a comprehensive directory and history of Chicago’s technology and VC community could be assembled. Chris Rollyson again recommended an existing site, Jigsaw.com.
Is some of this content buried in The May Report’s archives? “How many years do you have” to mine that data, quipped May. Besides, May insisted, “this wouldn’t be The May Report.” There’s too much baggage around the May report. This would be something different, perhaps something new.
