ValleyZen - At the Intersection of Zen, Modern Life and Technology

The world premiere of the largest, most comprehensive exhibit of the art, science & engineering works of Leonardo da Vinci is at The Tech Museum for just 100 days.
Wait — make that 99 days!

Last night the red carpet rolled for a lavish celebration hosted by Frank and Denise Quattrone, Tech President Peter Friess and The Tech Board. Friess told ValleyZen, “There are so many engineers in Silicon Valley, and inside the soul of every engineer is a little bit of Leonardo. He’s not a person — He’s a phenomenon.”

Donors and Valley celebs walked the red carpet —-flanked by a 24 foot tall model of the Sforza Horse with its mighty hooves crushing hundreds of fresh rose petals. This bronze sculpture was originally designed as a gift for Ludovico il Moro, the Duke of Milan as a monument to Francesco Sforza, his predecessor. Shipping it from Florence, Italy to San Jose, required two ocean containers…

“What has happened by chance is often difficult to repeat when it is sought deliberately. Chance is a genius.”
-Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training.

This past Saturday, September 6th, marked the second edition of Barcamp Hong Kong. Barcamp began as an un-conference in Palo Alto in 2005. Some bright, enthusiastic, cosmopolitan people have brought the concept to Hong Kong. Yet, I wouldn’t even know of the event, let alone be a participant were it not for Chance…

“We’d like this to be the Sundance Film Festival” for the tech industry – said Jason Calacanis—to over 1700 attendees, partners and press that rocked the San Francisco Design Concourse Center. Sterling sponsors including Fenwick & West, Google, The Founders Fund, MSN Money and Yahoo! made it possible. 52 top startups were selected from 1038 hopefuls and earned coveted 8 minute spots to present before the A-list audience. Short pitching sessions were judged by Valley icons like Google VP of Search and User Experience Marissa Mayer, MySpace Founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe, Angel Rockstar Ron Conway and Youtube Co-founder Chad Hurley. Check out ValleyZen’s exclusive interview with Chad Hurley…

“ValleyZen will be the first to know when we pull the trigger,” said Ron Gutman, Co-Founder and CEO of Wellsphere. A sleep-deprived but adrenalized team gathered around him at Wellsphere headquarters in San Mateo yesterday morning. Having worked around the clock the past few weeks in preparation for today’s launch of Wellsphere 2.0, they seemed none the worse for the wear.

“Welcome to our office,” said Dave Kashen, Co-Founder and CFO.
“It’s NOT an office, it’s a WellHome,” quipped Gutman…

Openness, freedom, no limits on space, no constraints on time, no timeclock. Foul lines shoot and dreams soar towards infinity. Not pinned indoors like basketball or hockey — but unfolding outdoors cradled by an open sky and merging with nature. A game of captivating simplicity —BUT one with nuances that take a lifetime to understand and master. A game where the now stretches out and snaps back – elastic. A game so statistics laden, that it is a paradise of numbers for software engineers. What could be more ValleyZen than this?

On Thursday we went to AT&T Park to watch the Giants edge out the Marlins. From a Fenwick & West Suite we had the relaxing chance to…

Craig Newmark speaks candidly about Barack Obama and John McCain, Presidential Zen and the Art of Service. Watch ValleyZen’s video interview here shot in San Francisco on location at Craig’s favorite hang. Craig opens up under California sun-dappled Japanese maples. Highlights include:

• Craig as eye candy — It’s tough being the glamorous poster boy for Craigslist!
• The art of customer service – Craig is the Master. The word Samurai means to serve. Craig’s twist on service.
• Presidential Zen — Barack Obama and John McCain — How do they set their Zen Compass?

Today’s post is the sequel to the preceding post “Zen and Venn” (below). Self-study is a prerequisite to finding the Venn lemon shaped common ground. We cannot know what we have in common with another if we do not know our own interests and objectives. One of the most common errors in technology licensing is that the parties come to the negotiating table without having prepared. To avoid this, advance preparation for negotiation means studying, identifying, and discussing within the negotiation team, our positions on key terms, while remaining flexible…

Zen theory and practice can help lawyers, technologists and businesspersons meet the fundamental challenge of negotiation of technology deals: finding the overlapping space in two distinct circles of interest, otherwise known as a Venn diagram…

Digerati 9 “sold out” faster than expected and was filled to capacity. The free, but invitation only event formed a wait list quickly earlier this month. On Sunday at the private home of Ron Gutman, techies took in sun and a view from his deck while leisurely sipping champagne and eating mousse. I asked Ron Gutman about the Zen of Digerati. “There is no agenda and we don’t try to frame anything. We don’t tell people what to expect or how to behave. It just…

Daunting lines wrapping Kipling street tighter than Apple shrink wrap don’t inspire you to join them. However, luck, timing, and circumstance collided. We were able to avoid the lines altogether.

Yesterday, umbrella shaded iPhone fans wilted in California sun. As of this morning Apple Palo Alto, Apple Stanford, Apple Los Gatos, and the AT&T store on El Camino were all “out of stock.” But on Saturday I chose twilight to step into the glass doors at Apple Stanford…