Geostationary Banana Over Texas

Yes indeed. I'll let you guys read this one by yourselves. Montreal creativity (and government spending, apparently) at its best.

In other (somehow related) news, I loved this post on the "Creating Passionate Users" blog, about passion for employer vs. passion for work. I can certainly relate. It's something I've observed in the organizations I've worked for and the companies I work with, and I feel that professionals from my generation definitely more often fall in the latter category.

"The company should behave just like a good user interface -- support people in doing what they're trying to do, and stay the hell out of their way. Applying the employer-as-UI model, the best company is one in which the employees are so engaged in their work that the company fades into the background."

Amen.

Going further down my list of starred items in my Google Reader, Andrew Parker, after attending the Brave New Web conference in Boston, concludes with

"Overall, the conference was entertaining, but no more informative than a day of posts on the blogosphere. The information exchange going on everyday on the blogosphere is the cutting-edge of thought leadership today. That being said, I dig conferences for the value of getting out from behind a computer and meeting people. There’s no substitute for face-to-face conversation."

I have to agree and I feel that becoming a heavy RSS user and reading a long list of tech, finance and VC blogs every day is making me better at what I do. But what Andrew says about conferences is also how I've been feeling about books lately. Every time I finish reading a business or non-fiction book I have this overwhelming sensation that the few new and good ideas it contained, the actual value added of the book, could have been written in a few blog posts and taken me 20 min. to read instead of a week. Shortening attention span, I guess.

Finally, a song for your Friday morning, taken from the amazing upcoming album Dividing Opinions by Giardini Di Miro, an indie/post-rock band from Italy. They have 4 or 5 older albums under their belt, all wonderful.
Giardini Di Miro - Spectral Woman

Miro: X-treme Sledding

Here are 2 quick youtube videos, taken last week-end on Mont-Royal (on my birthday ! 31...). The star of these videos is young Miro, 4 years old, nephew of my childhood buddy Olivier. Younger brother Elliot was cheering on, trying to keep his feet warm.



Also worthy of mention is the very modern and risqué camera-style, reminiscent of the late 90's Danish Dogma cinema (at the risk of freezing my fingers and/or breaking my trusty Canon point-and-shooter in an horrible krazy karpet vs. sno-racer accident). Edgy, I know.

Technology Entrepreneurs Montreal Breakfast Meetup

Ben, at the aptly named Instigator Blog, has announced the launch of a monthly breakfast for tech entrepreneurs, next Tuesday (the 13th) at Cafétéria (3581 St-Laurent). Discussions started here.

I think it's a brilliant idea and I'm definitely forwarding the invite to a few people. Don't hesitate to do the same.
I plan to attend from time to time, even though I'm not sure I can make it next week.

thingsmyboyfriendsays.com

While we're cuddled up in a corner of a local brew pub, reading books, exchanging neck kisses:

Christy: Do you think people sometimes think I'm your retarded sister ?
Dav: Of course not, sweetie.
Christy: Really ?
Dav: Yeah I'm sure they can tell you're my girlfriend.


Earlier this week Christy sent me a link to thingsmyboyfriendsays.com, and I have to admit it's pretty hilarious. And apparently more so because the boy in question is French Canadian.

Funny was important this week since work was kind of a bummer; I learned that my boss André, who I really enjoy working with, is going to work for our newly formed buy out and major investments group, and I also had to pull the plug on a 2 M $ investment in an early-stage company I had been working on for months, after weeks of due diligence and a lot of efforts on both sides. Never a fun phone call to make.

Oh, and my dad called with the news that Lulu had left us for a better world, a world full of juicy doggy treats and unlimited petting behind the ears.

At least I won both my soccer games with the Celtic and FC Fabrose, and got to play my first games of shinny of the year at Parc Lafontaine.

But, more funny stuff:
We watched both seasons of the "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" sitcom over the last 2 or 3 weeks and it's the best TV comedy I've seen since Arrested Development. It's been described as "Seinfeld on crack" and it's sortof accurate. It's a very lo-budget, politically incorrect production about 3 guys and a girl who own a bar. Danny DeVito also has a role in the second season. Downloadable here, but only for U.S. customers, so I had to find it somewhere else...

MP3 for your Sunday evening: Radio Dept. - Worst Taste in Music

How many consoles is this going to sell ?

Seen on Engadget...

A 25 yr. old from Philadelphia shed 9 lbs over 6 weeks by playing 30 min. of Nintendo Wii sports video games daily. Perfect example of how user-generated content can become a promotion/advertising tool. Deliberately or not.



Our CFO at A2M suggests that Desjardins Insurance reimburse or give discounts to their customers who buy a Wii (or A2M games !). Well, maybe.

The electricity in your house wants to sing

Fortune editor David Kirkpatrick believes that subscription services, like Rhapsody, rather than iTunes-type online stores, are the way of tomorrow, fueled by ubiquitous broadband and the proliferation of mobile devices. That made me pause and look at my own music set-up.

Home:

I have, on my PC, close to 200 GB of high bitrate mp3s. Most of them I encoded myself from my collection of CDs, some I've acquired through iTunes-type online stores (and un-DRM'ed) and, yes, there's a bunch I acquired by encoding some of my friends' CDs and sometimes filesharing with them.

That PC is in the small office I have in our apartment. My modified XBox, running the awesome open-source software XBMC, is in the living room, connected to my HDTV screen, to my sound system, and to my home wi-fi network... this makes my set-up the Poor Man's Sonos (also mentioned by Kirkpatrick).

With XBMC I can stream all my mp3s, build playlists and use visualizers on my TV screen. I can also stream Shoutcast stations (including my own server, which resides on an antique laptop). I can also watch my digital pics, DIVX movies, youtube clips and do many, many more things, (including playing XBox games...). Setting up and customizing XBMC takes a bit of skill, or, in my case, trial, error and a lot of tutorials, but the possibilities are plentiful.

We have a similar set-up in the bedroom, where I use another old work laptop, connected to the wi-fi network and to a set of speakers, and running VLC.

Mobile:

I've never owned an iPod (but Christy has one). I have a pre-iPod, old and bulky RCA Lyra Jukebox residing in the car and a trustworthy Archos Gmini400 for running, working out, or just walking around (I usually walk to work).

But, the new exciting addition to the family (merci papa !) is the Archos 604wifi. The thing has a full color 4.3" touchscreen, plays mp3s and other audio formats, videos and pictures. It has a wi-fi card which allows me to connect to a hotspot or to my home network, browse the web with its Opera browser, but also stream all the tunes and flicks I have on my network, whether I'm in bed, in the bathroom or on the balcony. Current firmware doesn't allow it but I can easily see the day where a device like this one would allow me to connect to any hotspot and stream music from my home server, or from a subscription service. Maybe I'll write a more detailed review of the 604wifi soon.

Work:

I have transferred a few GBs of music to my work laptop, but recently started using Vibe Streamer, which allows me to stream all the music I have on my PC at home, from work. I also used Vibe Streamer to DJ at the New Year's Eve party we held at my friend Cyril's loft. Really cool, although not everyone was pleased by my disdain for 80's hits. Streampad has a similar feature, but I couldn't get it to work on my system. I also tune in to my Shoutcast station (and others) from work.

So basically with Vibe Streamer I can now access my own music collection anywhere there's broadband internet. In theory, I could also give that access to anyone I want, giving them a free subscription to my music collection. And they could do the same, creating our own private Rhapsody...

I also finally started spying on myself and installed Last.fm last week, on my computers and enabled it on XBMC. I need to spend more time with it but it seems very exciting. Pandora, the Hype Machine and the various music blogs are other music sources I've enjoyed in the past months.

So, I haven't really used CDs (and their evil jewel cases) in the last 2 years, except to encode, right after I buy them. I realise that, for digital music, I'm very much the early adopter and that today's tools and products aren't for the average consumer. But these tools are getting more and more user-friendly and affordable. And the average consumer is getting more and more tech savvy.

I think Kirkpatrick is probably right and that subscription services are the future. I don't need to carry around CDs and even today I don't always need to have the actual mp3 files with me. But I definitely believe that a lot of those subscription services will be open and user/community generated and will, once again, evade being controlled by the music industry. I can easily see a future where I will stream all the music I need from my own server or from my Last.fm friends/neighbours' radios, not necessarily Rhapsody... It'll also be interesting to see what kind of free subscription access the piracy groups, darknets and other filesharing communities will make available...

In the meantime, according to I Am Robot And Pround - The Electricity in your House Want to Sing. If you ask me, that's damn good news.

101 Blog Tips

Chrystian Guy, a very-early-adopter of all things Web and a Québécois web start-up pioneer (and ex-entrepreneur from our portfolio) has a nice francophone tech-science-fun blog, where I found a link to this handy list of Blog Tips. Very useful for a newbie like me.

#18 is definitely my biggest blog-related issue right now...

What the Internet really is for...

Cute animals.
Last night I got sent off from my soccer game (i'm sparing you the details), so I got back home in a deservedly shitty mood. Seconds after coming back to our place I sat down with my girlfriend and watched this video 5 or 6 times straight.



And then I had a cookie.

Forget Web 2.0, new business models, social networking, web services... Cute animals will save the world. Especially if they sneeze on camera.

Cute Overload; one of the most popular blogs around. I do wonder if they have a business model.

Firefox-Mozilla made 52.9 M $ revenue in 2005

Chairman Mitchell Baker recently disclosed that number on his blog. It's more than I personally was expecting and now I'm really curious about the 2006 number. Apparently, most of the revenues come from the top right Google search box (and, I assume, the other drop-down options; Amazon, eBay, etc.).

It's always good to see open-source business models that actually work, although, once again, it all comes back to Google.

2006 quickie music retrospective- Part 2

OK, I know everyone is sick of these by now. But, it's Sunday night, tomorrow is back-to-work and seriousness for Dav, I want that streampad widget you see on the right side-bar to be well populated and it's my blog so I do whatever I want.
There.

Barzin - Let's Go Driving the opening track from My Life in Rooms
A great album of slow-paced, dreamy songs from this Toronto artist.

Kimya Dawson - Underground from Remember That I Love You
Kimya came back this year with another nice collection of lo-fi melodies and witty lyrics. Pretty good.

Beirut - Mount Wroclai (Idle Days) from Gulag Okestar
Probably my favorite album this year. Deservedly the darlings of the indie blogosphere. Check out the review of their Pop Montreal concert, written by my sweetie.

Calexico - All Systems Red from Garden Ruin
I miss their usually more mariachi infused sound, but this a very solid rock album.

EPO-555 - Maid in China from Mafia
Let me win back some of my indie cred by pimping this (more obscure) band from Denmark. Flaming Lips fans should like this.

The Appleseed Cast - Mountain Halo from Peregrine
More great inventive shoegazey indie rock from these ex-emoers.

Tokyo Police Club - Nature of the Experiment from their debut EP A Lesson in Crime
Very promising debut by these Toronto kids. If you like the Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, etc.

The Hot Springs - The Fog and The Horn from the Québec Émergent comp
I don't think The Hot Springs have an album out yet, but they're hyped as the next big thing out of Montreal. This girl here might be the next indie rock superstar.

Ratatat - Wildcat from Classics
This duo fuses synthetic beats with guitar riffs (and panther roars) for a very unique sound.

Booka Shade - Darko from Movements
One of the few electro albums i truly enjoyed in 2006.


Ellen Allien & Apparat - Do Not Break from Orchestra of Bubbles
More German electro-goodness resulting from this collaboration. They held a contest to pick the video for one of their songs. Beautiful results.

Mouse on Mars - Chartnok from Varcharz
Warning - this one isn't for everyone... a delicious brainf*ck. MoM are the grandaddies of German IDM. Their recent set at Salla Rossa are the 2nd time I actually busted a move in 2006. 1st time was the Sharon Jones' 50th Birthday Part in NYC.

Alias & Tarsier - Dr. C from their coast-to-coast collaborative effort BrooklandOaklyn
Reminds me of the good days of trip-hop.

Zuchini Drive - Sombre City from Being Kurtwood
Electro-hip-hop by a Belgian and a Sweden. Markus Acher (of the fantastic German band The Notwist) appears on this track, perhaps the most European one ever recorded.

Fat Jon & Styrofoam - Runnin' Circle from The Same Channel
Again, a great electro-hip-hop collaboration. US-Belgium. Go globalization.

Keny Arkana - Mère des enfants perdus from Entre ciment et belle étoile
Alright, I don't know much about hip-hop. Clipse, The Game, Nas, all great albums, but the one hip-hop record that really kicked my ass this year is the debut by a young, angry, immigrée Marseillaise. Very angry.

Asobi Seksu - New Years from Citrus
Let's end with a few louder picks. Asobi Seksu in a NYC shoegaze band fronted by a tiny Japanese girl. Great live show.

The Thermals - A Pillar of Salt from The Body, The Blood, The Machine
Very dynamic and gritty post-punk from Portland, OR.

Priestess - Talk to Her from Hello Master
Heavy arena rock band from Montreal. Long hair, old-fashioned riffs. I wish I could play in a garage band.

Mogwai - Travel Is Dangerous from Mr. Beast
These Glasgow post-rockers are long-time favorites of mine and this album didn't disappoint. Loud but melodic.

Triple Burner - Bride of Bad Attitude from their self-titled debut
Allow me to finish with this local act that I've particularly enjoyed seeing live a few times in the last 2 or 3 years. Triple Burner are Harris Newman (wonderful guitarist) and Bruce Cawdron (percussions). Hypnotic.

Alright, that's enough. I'm going to bed. Happy New Music Year everyone !

Once in a Lifetime

Christy and I took a few extra days off after New Year's and spent the week in Mont-Sainte-Anne and Québec City. Sadly, the weather and the snow were too wet for any serious snowshoeing or other outdoor sports. I'm also slowly recuperating from a calf injury that seems more serious than I originally thought. The good side to this crappy weather is that it forced us to take it easy, sleep a lot, listen to music, read books by the fire, watch a few movies, Heroes episodes...

One of the movies we watched is a documentary called Once in a Lifetime. It's about 2 of the subjects I am most passionate about; soccer, and business/entrepreneurship. The film tells the story of the New York Cosmos, a soccer team from the late 70s - early 80s and of the rise and fall of the North American Soccer League. I was way too young then to have witnessed the glory days of the NASL (I vaguely remember my grandpa giving me a Montreal Manic poster when I started playing), but that whole period is fascinating.

While watching I kept drawing parallels with the recent tech bubble and a few of the main characters reminded me of entrepreneurs and employees of early-sage companies that I've met. The movie is also super stylish (70s hairdoes !), the editing is very dynamic and they did a great job of rounding up and interviewing the main individuals that were involved back then (except Pelé, apparently too pricey...). Well recommended, smart entertainment, even if you're not a soccer fan.

Reviews at Rotten Tomatoes
Trailer:

punctuative!

Cool, I've been unearthed !
punctuative is a blog written by Matt Winn, an analyst at Chrysalis Ventures in Louisville. I met him briefly at the AlwaysOn Summit this summer (webcast archives). His posts are well worth the read, especially his recent insights on exits and the entrepreneur's stake. So, right backatcha Matt !

2006 quickie music retrospective- Part 1

Jolie Holland - Mexican Blue from her album Springtime Can Kill You
Let's start slow with this low-key jazz tune with a sexy southern twang. Lovely album.

Sodastream - Twin Lakes from Reservations
My favorite Aussie band. Guitar and stand-up bass duo.

Patrick Watson - Daydreamer from Close to Paradise
Patrick lives two corners from our place and, true story, last summer he saved the life of a dog we were dog-sitting. And then put out his superb sophomore album. Super-Hero stuff.


Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up from their album Shut Up I Am Dreaming
Also from Montreal, side-project of Spencer Krug, of Wolf Parade fame.

Malajube - La monogamie from the excellent Trompe l'oeil
We're still in Montreal, this time in French, and Malajube are the best thing that has happened to québécois rock in forever. Cool vids, too.

Land of Talk - Speak to Me Bones from their debut EP Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss
More Montreal indie rock goodness... man, I love this city.


More to come...

Stuff I enjoyed in 2006 (and my 1st music post)

Yup. I think my next few posts are going to be about things I liked in the past year; music, books, blogs, movies, gadgets, videogames, etc.

Music - I'm not going to do a top10 of 2006 (check here for a long list of those) but i'm going to mention artists and albums that I think were overlooked, or that I think really set themselves apart.

The first one I'd like to mention is "Technology Won't Save Us" by the band Sophia. Sophia really is Robin Proper-Sheppard, an american expat living in London and an artist I've enjoyed since the shoegazey-loud days of The God Machine. The first 2 Sophia albums were dark, sparse, beautifully depressive folk recordings, but his sound has evolved into a more straight forward indie-rock. Very melodic, very intense, maybe a wee bit over-produced.

Here's a song from the album : Lost (She Believed in Angels)

This is my first time posting music on a blog... hope it works...

Web 2.0 and what it means for early-stage VC investing

A blog i enjoy reading is Fred Wilson's A VC. He's a partner at Union Square Ventures, a NYC based early-stage VC firm. He's been blogging for a long time and his blog is overflowing with widgets and add-ons and tidbits, many of those from companies he's invested in (as I understand it). He also blogs a lot about music, and his indie rock tastes seem to intersect mine on many occasions. I haven't seen that often in the local VC community...

But his posts about VC are what keeps me coming back. This one, on what the Web 2.0 should mean for VCs, is well worth the read, especially for investment teams like ours, who are going back to early-stage investing after a few years of absence.

Holiday Cards

Si vous n'avez pas encore vu la carte de Noël de BluePrint Ventures... c'est une caricature assez fidèle de la vie en capital de risque... à part peut-être les jets privés, yachts et gonzesses...

Speaking of Xmas cards, this following video is of my distinguished colleague Robert Lévesque, whose business networking skills are SO amazing that he yearly near-drowns under them cards. RESPECT.

The Ignorant VC

I've spent way too much time in the last months reading blog posts written by VCs, about VC and entrepreneurship (check out the list compiled at VC 101) and i'm amazed by the depth and general helpfulness of most of those articles. I realised that blogs, and content syndication, could not only entertain and inform my little self, but also potentially make me better at what it is I actually do for a living. It's allowed me to understand better the potential and many of the possibilities of blogging and of the whole Web in general. Hey. If it's works for me, it's gotta work for a whole lotta people.
2.0 indeed...

So what am I doing here ? Not sure... Time will tell.

The much-talked-about Venture Capital Aptitude Test posted last month by Guy Kawasaki told me that, in theory, i should be one of the worst VCs around... Venture Capital IS my first real job. Hired straight out of my Business Management MSc. (5 years ago already !). No serious technical background, no real sales background, etc. But I've been steadily learning the Game, working with some of the best and smartest people around, colleagues and entrepreneurs, making mistakes, making good calls, and loving every minute of it (except for most of 2004... more on that later).

I also think that the "VC job" at a Québecois institutional VC firm like Desjardins is very different than what the job is in Sillicon Valley, or in most typical private funds. Also something i'll try and discuss later.

But anyhow, I strongly believe that Venture Capitalist is one of the best jobs there is. I especially love how you get to become a Jack of all trades (but, no, master of none): technology, strategy, finance, accounting, sales, marketing, legal, HR, governance... if there's something VCs are expert about, it's being experts of nothing, but smart enough and networked enough to find the right experts with the right skills and tightly watch them turn ideas into products, markets and, hopefully, huge-ass returns and bonuses. Fun, I tell ya !

Resolutions for the coming year

• Get more sleep (i can check out Colbert on youtube anyways)
• Become a better networker / business developer
• Talk more often in French with sweetie darlin' Christy so she'll get better faster
• No more checking the Blackberry during meetings.
• Get with the times and start a goddamn blog, already.

so.
there
you

go.