Given that I'm the co-curator of a TEDx event (TEDxBerkeley), I try to support as many other TEDx Events as I can….by attending, tweeting, and when I have the time, writing about the experience.

TEDxFillmore just had their event at Yoshi's along San Francisco's Fillmore Street this past week.

Director, Producer & Writer Thomas Simpson (left), was the emcee and the theme was "Passing the Baton." 

While this may mean different things to different people, typically, batons are passed in relay races. The intention is to hand off the batons from one person to another while attempting to cross the line. The baton in the case of this TEDx theme is meant figuratively and can mean past to the future, old to young, young to old, teacher to student, student to teacher and so on…

The event, curated by Chris and Moki Evans brought together six speakers to a stage set up on the main floor of Yoshi's Jazz Club, a renowned music venue designed by award winning architect Mori Moto that features the best of local, national and international performance artists.   

The line-up included founder of The Jazz & Democracy Project Dr. Wes Watkins, Catholic Roman Catholic Priest Dr. Victoria Rue, travel writer & adventure seeker Francis Tapon, poet and arts educator Dyanna Loeb, entrepreneur Harley Sitner and poet Zienab Abdelgany. All of them interesting, all of them engaging, all of them inspirational.

Dr. Wes Watkins teaches music in an integrated curriculum that uses jazz as a metaphor to bring American democracy to life and enrich the study of U.S. History in elementary, middle and high school.

"Jazz is a shared democracy, a shared experience, a shared leadership," he says. Jazz musicians improvise and from that perspective, they live on the edge nearly all the time. They trust that you'll go on a journey with them and you trust that that improvisation will just work and it almost always does.

The question of "who am I" is so paramount fo jazz musicians, just as much as the interaction with the audience is. "Who am I" he says, is what the musician shows us through his or her music. "Democracy is the same way," he exerts.

"Democracy has a certain tension, created originally by our forefathers when they set up checks and balances to keep different branches of government in place. The way jazz musicians create that tension is to listen and respond." He quotes Miles Davis who had often said, "first listen and then play." His belief is that government can learn a lot from jazz masters and that understanding jazz at its core can show us the way forward in American politics today.

He pointed to a few observations:

• New technologies in play where everything is open.
• There's a transparent government. Bear in mind that if government transparency is only about management of mistrust, then we start to face 1984 in reverse.  
• Any unveiling is also veiling. Read what you will from this statement, but it's profound. Just go there in the context of his thinking.

My favorite quote all night? In America's earliest days, Black African Americans were in the shadow of the country's "light." MUSIC reflected that light says Watkins. He added, "Embedded in the music was the very core and essence of who we are."

GOD, I loved that and it made me think of a personal guru of mine Frankie Manning (now deceased though I took more than a dozen classes from him), other jazz and dance training and experiences and over the years, and I thought how true that was/is and I'm not even part of that old Jazz era where they faced anything and everything and yet the purity of that golden age Jazz culture thrived.

Watkins never made this (aka, the above) correlation to democracy and jazz but I thought of it hours later after meeting him for the first time: Flexibility and adaptability is in the heart of every American immigrant. Jazz represents 'that.' Jazz resprents 'creation' on-the-fly and innovation in the moment, I thought, and isn't that everything this country stands for (or stood for….see my book review on Rescue America: What Made This Country Great).

Then, Francis Tapon took us on a journey that started with a question about how do you evaluate your life on a scale of 1-10?

Through travel, he claims that you can move that number from perhaps a 5 or 6 or even an 8 to a ten. 

Okay, so it's not easy for most of us to take off six months or even one or two months (or even weeks), particularly if we have a family we're supporting in some way shape or form. His take away is "just get out there and do it – get present with nature and the environment, even if its 48 hours…."

In other words, transformative life experiences result in just taking the chance. AKA – seize the opportunity, whether it be hours, days, weeks, months or years. We all have our own thresholds and we likely all have a handful of dreams we're not turning into reality.

BTW, while it is very un TED-like to give a book a plug, I'm actually in the process of reading Tapon's latest book: The Hidden Europe (behind the scenes of Eastern Europe).

Like Francis, I spent time backpacking through Eastern Europe in the late eighties and early nineties, a volatile and pivotal time for the region. He brings us a step further and cites cultural, language and anecdotal references throughout.

While I'm not finished with the book yet, I can't wait to plough through the cultural nuances of every Eastern country one page at a time. The reading is great so far – am loving it! From history, hiking (suck it up babe, if it ain't a 1,000 mile trail then…) and cultural insights learned to language faux pas and sexual encounters, he keeps you engaged throughout. I plan to do a book review once I have finished the delicious 736 page book.  

Below is the video of his TEDx talk:

Dyanna Loeb aka Dyna*Mic is an MC, poet and arts educator who started performing with Youth Speaks in 2001.

She has shared her words and music for international audiences, at venues including the San Francisco Opera House, the Nuyorican (NYC), and Project HeartBeat Jerusalem.

What's eerily odd about listening to her is her conviction to Judiasm and yet she's kinda rapping — poetically so — in every number she performs.

If I didn't know she was Jewish (in advance), it would make more sense listening to her work knowing that 'she is.' (Trust me, I met her mother and meeting 'a' mom on any first encounter adds a lot of data does it not?)

After listening to several excerpts and looking at the way this woman dresses, you find yourself thinking "this doesn't add up." Stereotypes be GONE is the lesson of the day. Even when we don't have them or think we have them or think we think that we don't have them but do have them, we do. We're human after all.

Despite how talented Dyanna is (and she TRULY is btw), this juxtoposition, the one that doesn't make sense to any viewer upon first glance, is her biggest gift in my humble opinion…

Even though her poetry and songs have been featured on several releases through Youth Movement Records, where she co-founded a writing workshop for incarcerated youth in Alameda County Juvenile Hall and she has performed around the country, her work isn't nationally known…Widely so anyway.

YET, this woman has a command of poetic language in a way that tells the traditional and the untraditional stories not to mention the hopes and fears of the Jews through rap (and poetry). All of it is so deliciously unrefined while being refined, and energetic and cool at the same time.

She has toured the Pacific Northwest to perform for Amnesty International's Make Some Noise for Darfur benefit. Her first chapbook, "Birkat HaGomel: A Survivor's Blessing" was published in 2010.  

A snippet below of her work:

Victoria Rue wanted to make sure we understood that women priests were not copies of 'male priests." "We're not interested in brocades," she says. "Women and 'feminine' priests are interested in understanding that it's not just about adding 'women to the mix' and calling it 'a day.'

Rue has studied liberation, feminist, and even lesbian theology. She likes to call her degree an M-Diva degree. Still, not commonplace! (not even close)

She reminds us that the female body has been put in the closet by the Roman Catholic Church for centuries and being 'proud of it' as a women' is still discouraged today. It's 2012. Women's bodies have repesented lust and sex for decades (okay, centuries) which …. she says, "must have been an embarrassment to a patriarchal God." 

She continues, "Feminist patriarchal Gods don't believe in that kind of God, a kind of God that excludes. We believe in a God that embraces equality for all." Asserting that langage is a critical component in life (loved her btw), she cites example after example of phrases that support movement and ones that don't — from historical times to present day.

Bulgarian-born Ivan Krastev 'showed up' on video only…aka, we never met the man. He humorously reminds us that the Bulargians are one of the most depressed cultures on the planet. I looked over at Francis during his talk…he smiled while I remembered stats that supported the 'same' in his Hidden Europe book. (I'm currently on Croatia, about half way through the book – meaning I finished the chapter on Bulgaria).

Serial entrepreneur Harlvey Sitner talked to the TEDxFillmore audience about organizational behavior and community.

He started and has subsequently led a sub-community at Burning Man called "Hippo Campus."

What was refreshing was the reminder that despite how 'plugged in' we think we are, we're not all that plugged in.

In other words, we're all islands within our own micro-communities and while they may grow to be thousands in numbers, still….only a small number of people know who we are, what we do, why we're valuable and a step further, why contribute in a way to accelerate that community or group?

Harley talked about group behavior. Crikey, I live in Silicon Valley and on many levels, feel as if I know every "Burner — aka term given to a Burning Man attendee" on the planet….AND YET, I had not hard of Hippo Campus, a community which given the talk, would appear to be infamous worldwide.

Despite the fact that its not on my radar, according to Harley, the community not only exists, but it's thriving and renowned. In the passing of baton-theme, he talked about how they consciously created 'shared experiences' as they grew in size. 

KEY? Highlighting the fact that everyone has a 'unique gift' and that it's up to the community to identify each person's unique gift and to help manifest that 'gift' — to the world.

He notes an observation that pertains to every organizational culture I know of on the planet – transitioning a personality-led culture to an organizational-led culture is really hard….more often that not, it simply fails. Lessons learned, he cites among others, these cores:

• Have No Drama.
• Have Radical Accountability.
• Identify Sexy Projects…Sexy = Helpful and Authentic. It's All in the Terminology. (I added that part).
• Fall Without Fear.
• There is no Perfect Way.
• Surface Area for Participation and Experimentation.
• AT the end of the day, Harley reminds us that "culture transcends EVERYTHING. Culture is the DNA of the organization." Hear hear.
• This couldn't be further from the truth in my own experience over the years, whether it was the size of a company like Computer Associates or Novell in its heydey or one of the umpteen start-ups I've launced over the past 15+ years.

Egyptian Zienab Abdelgany surprised and delighted me. While she grew up in Irvine and went to UC Berkeley, she has always been heavily involved in organizing the Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities.

Currently, she is researching Pro-Palestine communities and effors and has been writing poetry that spans across all of these issues.

Her sweet spot? She speaks on identity and the politics of personhood.

Her energy and authenticity were wonderful. I loved her encouragement is to ask away despite how stupid and culturally ill-fitting the question may appear. Asking and being genuine and authentic in your ask regardless of what it is, is the first step.  

Additionally, musicians Therese Taylor and James Whiton played. Below are the hands of Whiton as he played a follow up jazz number appropriately following Watkin's talk on "Where Jazz Meets Democracy." My title, not his, but you get the point.

Below is a group shot of 4 out of the 6 speakers, the two curators and both musical performers.

All photos credits by Renee Blodgett.

Given that I'm the co-curator of a TEDx event (TEDxBerkeley), I try to support as many other TEDx Events as I can….by attending, tweeting, and when I have the time, writing about the experience.

TEDxFillmore just had their event at Yoshi's along San Francisco's Fillmore Street this past week.

Director, Producer & Writer Thomas Simpson (left), was the emcee and the theme was "Passing the Baton." 

While this may mean different things to different people, typically, batons are passed in relay races. The intention is to hand off the batons from one person to another while attempting to cross the line. The baton in the case of this TEDx theme is meant figuratively and can mean past to the future, old to young, young to old, teacher to student, student to teacher and so on…

The event, curated by Chris and Moki Evans brought together six speakers to a stage set up on the main floor of Yoshi's Jazz Club, a renowned music venue designed by award winning architect Mori Moto that features the best of local, national and international performance artists.   

The line-up included founder of The Jazz & Democracy Project Dr. Wes Watkins, Catholic Roman Catholic Priest Dr. Victoria Rue, travel writer & adventure seeker Francis Tapon, poet and arts educator Dyanna Loeb, entrepreneur Harley Sitner and poet Zienab Abdelgany. All of them interesting, all of them engaging, all of them inspirational.

Dr. Wes Watkins teaches music in an integrated curriculum that uses jazz as a metaphor to bring American democracy to life and enrich the study of U.S. History in elementary, middle and high school.

"Jazz is a shared democracy, a shared experience, a shared leadership," he says. Jazz musicians improvise and from that perspective, they live on the edge nearly all the time. They trust that you'll go on a journey with them and you trust that that improvisation will just work and it almost always does.

The question of "who am I" is so paramount fo jazz musicians, just as much as the interaction with the audience is. "Who am I" he says, is what the musician shows us through his or her music. "Democracy is the same way," he exerts.

"Democracy has a certain tension, created originally by our forefathers when they set up checks and balances to keep different branches of government in place. The way jazz musicians create that tension is to listen and respond." He quotes Miles Davis who had often said, "first listen and then play." His belief is that government can learn a lot from jazz masters and that understanding jazz at its core can show us the way forward in American politics today.

He pointed to a few observations:

• New technologies in play where everything is open.
• There's a transparent government. Bear in mind that if government transparency is only about management of mistrust, then we start to face 1984 in reverse.  
• Any unveiling is also veiling. Read what you will from this statement, but it's profound. Just go there in the context of his thinking.

My favorite quote all night? In America's earliest days, Black African Americans were in the shadow of the country's "light." MUSIC reflected that light says Watkins. He added, "Embedded in the music was the very core and essence of who we are."

GOD, I loved that and it made me think of a personal guru of mine Frankie Manning (now deceased though I took more than a dozen classes from him), other jazz and dance training and experiences and over the years, and I thought how true that was/is and I'm not even part of that old Jazz era where they faced anything and everything and yet the purity of that golden age Jazz culture thrived.

Watkins never made this (aka, the above) correlation to democracy and jazz but I thought of it hours later after meeting him for the first time: Flexibility and adaptability is in the heart of every American immigrant. Jazz represents 'that.' Jazz resprents 'creation' on-the-fly and innovation in the moment, I thought, and isn't that everything this country stands for (or stood for….see my book review on Rescue America: What Made This Country Great).

Then, Francis Tapon took us on a journey that started with a question about how do you evaluate your life on a scale of 1-10?

Through travel, he claims that you can move that number from perhaps a 5 or 6 or even an 8 to a ten. 

Okay, so it's not easy for most of us to take off six months or even one or two months (or even weeks), particularly if we have a family we're supporting in some way shape or form. His take away is "just get out there and do it – get present with nature and the environment, even if its 48 hours…."

In other words, transformative life experiences result in just taking the chance. AKA – seize the opportunity, whether it be hours, days, weeks, months or years. We all have our own thresholds and we likely all have a handful of dreams we're not turning into reality.

BTW, while it is very un TED-like to give a book a plug, I'm actually in the process of reading Tapon's latest book: The Hidden Europe (behind the scenes of Eastern Europe).

Like Francis, I spent time backpacking through Eastern Europe in the late eighties and early nineties, a volatile and pivotal time for the region. He brings us a step further and cites cultural, language and anecdotal references throughout.

While I'm not finished with the book yet, I can't wait to plough through the cultural nuances of every Eastern country one page at a time. The reading is great so far – am loving it! From history, hiking (suck it up babe, if it ain't a 1,000 mile trail then…) and cultural insights learned to language faux pas and sexual encounters, he keeps you engaged throughout. I plan to do a book review once I have finished the delicious 736 page book.  

Below is the video of his TEDx talk:

Dyanna Loeb aka Dyna*Mic is an MC, poet and arts educator who started performing with Youth Speaks in 2001.

She has shared her words and music for international audiences, at venues including the San Francisco Opera House, the Nuyorican (NYC), and Project HeartBeat Jerusalem.

What's eerily odd about listening to her is her conviction to Judiasm and yet she's kinda rapping — poetically so — in every number she performs.

If I didn't know she was Jewish (in advance), it would make more sense listening to her work knowing that 'she is.' (Trust me, I met her mother and meeting 'a' mom on any first encounter adds a lot of data does it not?)

After listening to several excerpts and looking at the way this woman dresses, you find yourself thinking "this doesn't add up." Stereotypes be GONE is the lesson of the day. Even when we don't have them or think we have them or think we think that we don't have them but do have them, we do. We're human after all.

Despite how talented Dyanna is (and she TRULY is btw), this juxtoposition, the one that doesn't make sense to any viewer upon first glance, is her biggest gift in my humble opinion…

Even though her poetry and songs have been featured on several releases through Youth Movement Records, where she co-founded a writing workshop for incarcerated youth in Alameda County Juvenile Hall and she has performed around the country, her work isn't nationally known…Widely so anyway.

YET, this woman has a command of poetic language in a way that tells the traditional and the untraditional stories not to mention the hopes and fears of the Jews through rap (and poetry). All of it is so deliciously unrefined while being refined, and energetic and cool at the same time.

She has toured the Pacific Northwest to perform for Amnesty International's Make Some Noise for Darfur benefit. Her first chapbook, "Birkat HaGomel: A Survivor's Blessing" was published in 2010.  

A snippet below of her work:

Victoria Rue wanted to make sure we understood that women priests were not copies of 'male priests." "We're not interested in brocades," she says. "Women and 'feminine' priests are interested in understanding that it's not just about adding 'women to the mix' and calling it 'a day.'

Rue has studied liberation, feminist, and even lesbian theology. She likes to call her degree an M-Diva degree. Still, not commonplace! (not even close)

She reminds us that the female body has been put in the closet by the Roman Catholic Church for centuries and being 'proud of it' as a women' is still discouraged today. It's 2012. Women's bodies have repesented lust and sex for decades (okay, centuries) which …. she says, "must have been an embarrassment to a patriarchal God." 

She continues, "Feminist patriarchal Gods don't believe in that kind of God, a kind of God that excludes. We believe in a God that embraces equality for all." Asserting that langage is a critical component in life (loved her btw), she cites example after example of phrases that support movement and ones that don't — from historical times to present day.

Bulgarian-born Ivan Krastev 'showed up' on video only…aka, we never met the man. He humorously reminds us that the Bulargians are one of the most depressed cultures on the planet. I looked over at Francis during his talk…he smiled while I remembered stats that supported the 'same' in his Hidden Europe book. (I'm currently on Croatia, about half way through the book – meaning I finished the chapter on Bulgaria).

Serial entrepreneur Harlvey Sitner talked to the TEDxFillmore audience about organizational behavior and community.

He started and has subsequently led a sub-community at Burning Man called "Hippo Campus."

What was refreshing was the reminder that despite how 'plugged in' we think we are, we're not all that plugged in.

In other words, we're all islands within our own micro-communities and while they may grow to be thousands in numbers, still….only a small number of people know who we are, what we do, why we're valuable and a step further, why contribute in a way to accelerate that community or group?

Harley talked about group behavior. Crikey, I live in Silicon Valley and on many levels, feel as if I know every "Burner — aka term given to a Burning Man attendee" on the planet….AND YET, I had not hard of Hippo Campus, a community which given the talk, would appear to be infamous worldwide.

Despite the fact that its not on my radar, according to Harley, the community not only exists, but it's thriving and renowned. In the passing of baton-theme, he talked about how they consciously created 'shared experiences' as they grew in size. 

KEY? Highlighting the fact that everyone has a 'unique gift' and that it's up to the community to identify each person's unique gift and to help manifest that 'gift' — to the world.

He notes an observation that pertains to every organizational culture I know of on the planet – transitioning a personality-led culture to an organizational-led culture is really hard….more often that not, it simply fails. Lessons learned, he cites among others, these cores:

• Have No Drama.
• Have Radical Accountability.
• Identify Sexy Projects…Sexy = Helpful and Authentic. It's All in the Terminology. (I added that part).
• Fall Without Fear.
• There is no Perfect Way.
• Surface Area for Participation and Experimentation.
• AT the end of the day, Harley reminds us that "culture transcends EVERYTHING. Culture is the DNA of the organization." Hear hear.
• This couldn't be further from the truth in my own experience over the years, whether it was the size of a company like Computer Associates or Novell in its heydey or one of the umpteen start-ups I've launced over the past 15+ years.

Egyptian Zienab Abdelgany surprised and delighted me. While she grew up in Irvine and went to UC Berkeley, she has always been heavily involved in organizing the Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities.

Currently, she is researching Pro-Palestine communities and effors and has been writing poetry that spans across all of these issues.

Her sweet spot? She speaks on identity and the politics of personhood.

Her energy and authenticity were wonderful. I loved her encouragement is to ask away despite how stupid and culturally ill-fitting the question may appear. Asking and being genuine and authentic in your ask regardless of what it is, is the first step.  

Additionally, musicians Therese Taylor and James Whiton played. Below are the hands of Whiton as he played a follow up jazz number appropriately following Watkin's talk on "Where Jazz Meets Democracy." My title, not his, but you get the point.

Below is a group shot of 4 out of the 6 speakers, the two curators and both musical performers.

All photos credits by Renee Blodgett.

Given that I’m the co-curator of a TEDx event (TEDxBerkeley), I try to support as many other TEDx Events as I can….by attending, tweeting, and when I have the time, writing about the experience. TEDxFillmore just had their event at Yoshi’s along San Francisco’s Fillmore Street this past week. Director, Producer & Writer Thomas Simpson (left), was the emcee and the theme was “Passing the Baton.” While this may mean different things to different people, typically, batons are passed in relay races. The intention is to hand off the batons from one person to another while attempting to cross the line. The baton in the case of this TEDx theme is meant figuratively and can mean past to the future, old to young, young to old, teacher to student, student to teacher and so on… The event, curated by Chris and Moki Evans brought together six speakers to a stage set up on the main floor of Yoshi’s Jazz Club, a renowned music venue designed by award winning architect Mori Moto that features the best of local, national and international performance artists. The line-up included founder of The Jazz & Democracy Project Dr. Wes Watkins, Catholic Roman Catholic Priest Dr. Victoria Rue, travel writer & adventure seeker Francis Tapon, poet and arts educator Dyanna Loeb, entrepreneur Harley Sitner and poet Zienab Abdelgany. All of them interesting, all of them engaging, all of them inspirational. Dr. Wes Watkins teaches music in an integrated curriculum that uses jazz as a metaphor to bring American democracy to life and enrich the study of U.S. History in elementary, middle and high school. “Jazz is a shared democracy, a shared experience, a shared leadership,” he says. Jazz musicians improvise and from that perspective, they live on the edge nearly all the time. They trust that…

I no longer get pumped up about cool new social apps or drink the Silicon Valley coolaid – there’s just too much of it. When I learn about new products or services, these are my two go to questions: would I use this today and does this solve a real problem that I’ve had for awhile? When inTooch co-founder and CEO Julien Salanon gave me his pitch and suggested we work together, I was at first skeptical about their promise: to eliminate the business card problem. While it’s too early to tell since there are so many variables in this business not to mention human behavior, as a fellow entrepreneur, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by his idea. And besides, Julien has one of those personalities that is impossible not to like. He shared a story with me as we sipped tea at one of my favorite haunts in San Francisco’s SOMA. Nearly ten years ago, he was at an important conference and forgot his business cards and a result, important connections were lost. Over the last decade, he said that he tried several apps to solve this business-card issue, but none of them worked. They still don’t. Don’t even get me started with BUMP btw, an app that peer pressure forced me to download yet it only worked one out of ten times I tried it. And, frankly, the whole concept of crashing two phones together doesn’t quite gel with me. Julien said, “whenever I didn’t have a business card or they didn’t, I ended up calling the other person to leave my mobile number. And, that’s when I got the idea to enhance those natural connections with inTooch.” While I may not call every person I meet at a conference, when I do meet someone I want…

I no longer get pumped up about cool new social apps or drink the Silicon Valley coolaid – there's just too much of it.

When I learn about new products or services, these are my two go to questions: would I use this today and does this solve a real problem that I've had for awhile?

When inTooch co-founder and CEO Julien Salanon gave me his pitch and suggested we work together, I was at first skeptical about their promise: to eliminate the business card problem.

While it's too early to tell since there are so many variables in this business not to mention human behavior, as a fellow entrepreneur, I couldn't help but be intrigued by his idea. And besides, Julien has one of those personalities that is impossible not to like. 

He shared a story with me as we sipped tea at one of my favorite haunts in San Francisco's SOMA. Nearly ten years ago, he was at an important conference and forgot his business cards and a result, important connections were lost.

Over the last decade, he said that he tried several apps to solve this business-card issue, but none of them worked. They still don't. Don't even get me started with BUMP btw, an app that peer pressure forced me to download yet it only worked one out of ten times I tried it. And, frankly, the whole concept of crashing two phones together doesn't quite gel with me. 

Julien said, "whenever I didn't have a business card or they didn't, I ended up calling the other person to leave my mobile number. And, that’s when I got the idea to enhance those natural connections with inTooch.”

While I may not call every person I meet at a conference, when I do meet someone I want to stay in touch with and we don't have a pen or card, what happens? They call me so the number is saved in my phone. What I don't have in that scenario of course is their name or email automatically, but it's a process that works in a pinch.

inTooch takes it a step further allowing you to email or call them on the fly which automatically sends a link: this link is the conduit which allows that exchange of information to happen. The beautiful part about the app and why it stands a strong chance of taking off, is that both parties don't need to have the app to work.

Intrigued that perhaps I'd soon have a client with a product I'd ACTUALLY USE, I decided to be the evil dragonness to avoid any surprises later on, so I started drilling him with questions. 

What about categorization I asked? Not in the first version he said, but it's coming. What about social networks? Built in he said. What about privacy and personalization? Built in he said. Hmm, I wanted categories of course given that I have nearly 100,000 contacts in my database, but also realize that I'm not your average Nelly when it comes to contact management.

As my friend Steve said, "you're not normal, you're in the business of needing to mate with the world. In fact, you love to mate with the world." I had to laugh. He's right. I love meeting people and no one seems to come home from an event with more business cards than I do.

AND, he said, the ability to add contacts to categories is coming. They already have the ability to separate personal and business contacts.

I'm a realist. Anyone who works with early start-ups needs to be a realist. Rome wasn't build in a day and most apps when they first go to market don't have every single detail or feature you want built in in their first version. As long as the team has it on the roadmap or thinking about it, it's good enough to give it a shot. If we didn't trust that process, real innovation wouldn't happen and we wouldn't be where we are today.

Unlike so many social apps that are Web 2.0 features rather than solutions to problems, I thought to myself, "inTooch would actually take care of a huge pain point in my life."

And so, we embarked on a journey in early September. Forward wind the clock. Julien took People's Choice Award at GigaOm's Mobilize in mid-September when he pitched a panel of VCs on stage.

Then, he officially launched inTooch on the DEMO Stage on October 3 with Dave Mathews in an amusing skit that included the duo tossing 2,000 business cards into the DEMO audience as they shouted FREEDOM, FREEDOM, FREEDOM.

At one point, I thought Julien might start dancing when the music came on. OR, maybe it was one of those Halleluja moments.

Consider this: did you realize that of all the people you meet at a conference or even in a personal situation, you won't stay in touch with 85% of them? Without sounding too trite – inTooch to the rescue.

Trust me, I want to be rescued and I think most of us do. I can't keep up with the volume of contacts and there are always people to want to follow up with and just don't have the time. There are also people's contact information I'm trying to locate months later and realized I didn't have time to enter their data.

There are 4 cool features I personally love about the app:

1. The Mobile Geo-Location Piece: since I travel a lot, I often think about people (and their faces) based on 'where' I met them. Oh yeah, that was John who I met at this festival in Louisville Kentucky, or that was Jeannie something and we hung out at CES in Las Vegas. Using geo-tagging, inTooch lets you search for people by location and their photo appears as well to jog your memory. Sweet!

2. Seamless/Fast: additionally, if I don't want to call the person or they don't want me to, I can shoot them an email and the inTooch connector still works. The other cool thing is that both parties don't need the app for the exchange to happen. Obviously the process is even faster if both people DO have the app, so I'd encourage everyone to download the app. Let the seamless exchange of data begin! 

3. Social Network Exchange. So many people I meet under the age of 30 either don't have a business card (even in a business setting), give me their Twitter handle or say connect with me on Facebook. (as if I'm going to remember their name or handle the next day or a week later when I'm back home).

I'm always amazed that they think I'll take the time to jot down their data with a visual queue of our conversation. It's too much work. What's great about inTooch is that you can opt to include the exchange of your social network information as well. It currently supports LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

I've known Chris Taylor from Mashable for years and for some odd reason, didn't know he was @FutureBoy on Twitter. Ever try to Google a "common name's" Twitter handle and not get so frustrated by the fifth click that you finally give up? Don't get me started on the poor search functionality within Twitter itself although I know they're improving it all the time.

4. Augmented Reality: for personal encounters, inTooch brings augmented reality to your connections, alerting you to all the things you have in common with another person (friends, places you visited, music, movies you like, social network info, check-ins, interests you share) so you can instantly engage in mutually interesting conversations.

Bottom line, it's been a fun ride so far and we're only a month into it. Free to use, the app is available now for iPhone (except iOS6) and alive and ticking for the Android as well.

Support for iOS6, other platforms and mobile devices are also coming later this year.

So, give it a try. Don't die a slow death in a mountain of business cards like poor Matt Marshall here! Everyone has their limits.

Below is a video shot by Jean Baptiste Su of their demo presentation.

See my earlier write-up on inTooch on the day of launch. And, refer to my two write-ups on Demo, 8 cool commerce apps and my DEMO photo summary.

Photo Credits: photo at GigaOm taken by Carla Schlemminger and all other photos by Renee Blodgett.

I no longer get pumped up about cool new social apps or drink the Silicon Valley coolaid – there's just too much of it.

When I learn about new products or services, these are my two go to questions: would I use this today and does this solve a real problem that I've had for awhile?

When inTooch co-founder and CEO Julien Salanon gave me his pitch and suggested we work together, I was at first skeptical about their promise: to eliminate the business card problem.

While it's too early to tell since there are so many variables in this business not to mention human behavior, as a fellow entrepreneur, I couldn't help but be intrigued by his idea. And besides, Julien has one of those personalities that is impossible not to like. 

He shared a story with me as we sipped tea at one of my favorite haunts in San Francisco's SOMA. Nearly ten years ago, he was at an important conference and forgot his business cards and a result, important connections were lost.

Over the last decade, he said that he tried several apps to solve this business-card issue, but none of them worked. They still don't. Don't even get me started with BUMP btw, an app that peer pressure forced me to download yet it only worked one out of ten times I tried it. And, frankly, the whole concept of crashing two phones together doesn't quite gel with me. 

Julien said, "whenever I didn't have a business card or they didn't, I ended up calling the other person to leave my mobile number. And, that’s when I got the idea to enhance those natural connections with inTooch.”

While I may not call every person I meet at a conference, when I do meet someone I want to stay in touch with and we don't have a pen or card, what happens? They call me so the number is saved in my phone. What I don't have in that scenario of course is their name or email automatically, but it's a process that works in a pinch.

inTooch takes it a step further allowing you to email or call them on the fly which automatically sends a link: this link is the conduit which allows that exchange of information to happen. The beautiful part about the app and why it stands a strong chance of taking off, is that both parties don't need to have the app to work.

Intrigued that perhaps I'd soon have a client with a product I'd ACTUALLY USE, I decided to be the evil dragonness to avoid any surprises later on, so I started drilling him with questions. 

What about categorization I asked? Not in the first version he said, but it's coming. What about social networks? Built in he said. What about privacy and personalization? Built in he said. Hmm, I wanted categories of course given that I have nearly 100,000 contacts in my database, but also realize that I'm not your average Nelly when it comes to contact management.

As my friend Steve said, "you're not normal, you're in the business of needing to mate with the world. In fact, you love to mate with the world." I had to laugh. He's right. I love meeting people and no one seems to come home from an event with more business cards than I do.

AND, he said, the ability to add contacts to categories is coming. They already have the ability to separate personal and business contacts.

I'm a realist. Anyone who works with early start-ups needs to be a realist. Rome wasn't build in a day and most apps when they first go to market don't have every single detail or feature you want built in in their first version. As long as the team has it on the roadmap or thinking about it, it's good enough to give it a shot. If we didn't trust that process, real innovation wouldn't happen and we wouldn't be where we are today.

Unlike so many social apps that are Web 2.0 features rather than solutions to problems, I thought to myself, "inTooch would actually take care of a huge pain point in my life."

And so, we embarked on a journey in early September. Forward wind the clock. Julien took People's Choice Award at GigaOm's Mobilize in mid-September when he pitched a panel of VCs on stage.

Then, he officially launched inTooch on the DEMO Stage on October 3 with Dave Mathews in an amusing skit that included the duo tossing 2,000 business cards into the DEMO audience as they shouted FREEDOM, FREEDOM, FREEDOM.

At one point, I thought Julien might start dancing when the music came on. OR, maybe it was one of those Halleluja moments.

Consider this: did you realize that of all the people you meet at a conference or even in a personal situation, you won't stay in touch with 85% of them? Without sounding too trite – inTooch to the rescue.

Trust me, I want to be rescued and I think most of us do. I can't keep up with the volume of contacts and there are always people to want to follow up with and just don't have the time. There are also people's contact information I'm trying to locate months later and realized I didn't have time to enter their data.

There are 4 cool features I personally love about the app:

1. The Mobile Geo-Location Piece: since I travel a lot, I often think about people (and their faces) based on 'where' I met them. Oh yeah, that was John who I met at this festival in Louisville Kentucky, or that was Jeannie something and we hung out at CES in Las Vegas. Using geo-tagging, inTooch lets you search for people by location and their photo appears as well to jog your memory. Sweet!

2. Seamless/Fast: additionally, if I don't want to call the person or they don't want me to, I can shoot them an email and the inTooch connector still works. The other cool thing is that both parties don't need the app for the exchange to happen. Obviously the process is even faster if both people DO have the app, so I'd encourage everyone to download the app. Let the seamless exchange of data begin! 

3. Social Network Exchange. So many people I meet under the age of 30 either don't have a business card (even in a business setting), give me their Twitter handle or say connect with me on Facebook. (as if I'm going to remember their name or handle the next day or a week later when I'm back home).

I'm always amazed that they think I'll take the time to jot down their data with a visual queue of our conversation. It's too much work. What's great about inTooch is that you can opt to include the exchange of your social network information as well. It currently supports LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

I've known Chris Taylor from Mashable for years and for some odd reason, didn't know he was @FutureBoy on Twitter. Ever try to Google a "common name's" Twitter handle and not get so frustrated by the fifth click that you finally give up? Don't get me started on the poor search functionality within Twitter itself although I know they're improving it all the time.

4. Augmented Reality: for personal encounters, inTooch brings augmented reality to your connections, alerting you to all the things you have in common with another person (friends, places you visited, music, movies you like, social network info, check-ins, interests you share) so you can instantly engage in mutually interesting conversations.

Bottom line, it's been a fun ride so far and we're only a month into it. Free to use, the app is available now for iPhone (except iOS6) and alive and ticking for the Android as well.

Support for iOS6, other platforms and mobile devices are also coming later this year.

So, give it a try. Don't die a slow death in a mountain of business cards like poor Matt Marshall here! Everyone has their limits.

Below is a video shot by Jean Baptiste Su of their demo presentation.

See my earlier write-up on inTooch on the day of launch. And, refer to my two write-ups on Demo, 8 cool commerce apps and my DEMO photo summary.

Photo Credits: photo at GigaOm taken by Carla Schlemminger and all other photos by Renee Blodgett.

There was an odd but interesting combination of fireside chats at DEMOFall this year: Ray Kurzweil and Ev Williams both took the stage over the course of the 2.5 day event in Santa Clara, CA. Kurzweil, known for his work in voice recognition, natural language processing, singularity and future predictions, I’m always curious to hear what he’s going to share, especially when he moves onto the brain. Says Ray in a response to the question of why natural language processing has taken so long to advance, “you have to take a hierarchial approach just like human language – you have to build it that way. We learn things layer by layer and we have to educate our synthetic neocortexes too.” When you start to dive deep into a discussion about synthetic neocortexes, where do you go from there, particularly when the majority of the audience are Web 2.0 and mobile geeks not scientists or researchers. Venture Beat’s Matt Marshall interviewed Ray, his next to last stage interview before leaving the DEMO Conferences as producer. Matt asked about ethics, which was a perfect segway into artificial intelligence. You can’t have a discussion with Ray without artificial intelligence coming up at least once. “Technology has always been a double edged sword,” says Ray. “Just like fire has been used for good and evil, AI can be as dangerous as fire when put in the wrong hands.” He reminded the audience that AI is already widely distributed however and that it’s not just being used in a dark lab in some government building. And, look how far we’ve come. A kid in Africa now has access to more knowledge and information than the President of the United States did 20 years ago. If that’s not an example of exponential growth, I don’t know…

There was an odd but interesting combination of fireside chats at DEMOFall this year: Ray Kurzweil and Ev Williams both took the stage over the course of the 2.5 day event in Santa Clara, CA.

Kurzweil, known for his work in voice recognition, natural language processing, singularity and future predictions, I’m always curious to hear what he’s going to share, especially when he moves onto the brain.

Says Ray in a response to the question of why natural language processing has taken so long to advance, “you have to take a hierarchial approach just like human language – you have to build it that way. We learn things layer by layer and we have to educate our synthetic neocortexes too.”

When you start to dive deep into a discussion about synthetic neocortexes, where do you go from there, particularly when the majority of the audience are Web 2.0 and mobile geeks not scientists or researchers. Venture Beat’s Matt Marshall interviewed Ray, his next to last stage interview before leaving the DEMO Conferences as producer.

Matt asked about ethics, which was a perfect segway into artificial intelligence. You can’t have a discussion with Ray without artificial intelligence coming up at least once. 

“Technology has always been a double edged sword,” says Ray. “Just like fire has been used for good and evil, AI can be as dangerous as fire when put in the wrong hands.” He reminded the audience that AI is already widely distributed however and that it’s not just being used in a dark lab in some government building.

And, look how far we’ve come. A kid in Africa now has access to more knowledge and information than the President of the United States did 20 years ago. If that’s not an example of exponential growth, I don’t know what is…

See below for the interview on video. Even though it is a HD video clip, bear in mind that the sound quality may not be crisp.

There was an odd but interesting combination of fireside chats at DEMOFall this year: Ray Kurzweil and Ev Williams both took the stage over the course of the 2.5 day event in Santa Clara, CA.

Kurzweil, known for his work in voice recognition, natural language processing, singularity and future predictions, I’m always curious to hear what he’s going to share, especially when he moves onto the brain.

Says Ray in a response to the question of why natural language processing has taken so long to advance, “you have to take a hierarchial approach just like human language – you have to build it that way. We learn things layer by layer and we have to educate our synthetic neocortexes too.”

When you start to dive deep into a discussion about synthetic neocortexes, where do you go from there, particularly when the majority of the audience are Web 2.0 and mobile geeks not scientists or researchers. Venture Beat’s Matt Marshall interviewed Ray, his next to last stage interview before leaving the DEMO Conferences as producer.

Matt asked about ethics, which was a perfect segway into artificial intelligence. You can’t have a discussion with Ray without artificial intelligence coming up at least once. 

“Technology has always been a double edged sword,” says Ray. “Just like fire has been used for good and evil, AI can be as dangerous as fire when put in the wrong hands.” He reminded the audience that AI is already widely distributed however and that it’s not just being used in a dark lab in some government building.

And, look how far we’ve come. A kid in Africa now has access to more knowledge and information than the President of the United States did 20 years ago. If that’s not an example of exponential growth, I don’t know what is…

See below for the interview on video. Even though it is a HD video clip, bear in mind that the sound quality may not be crisp.

On the DEMO Fall 2012 stage this afternoon, eight commerce apps showed off their latest and greatest at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, CA. Invenia announced the launch of ENSAFER, an innovative cloud encryption service. Ensafer offers users of Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive and alike, to encrypt their data integrated in their service of choice, with all complexity hidden. Ensafer is end-to-end encryption technology, solving an unsolved demand — the encryption of files as you store, share and collaborate with them in the cloud. They peg themselves as “security by design.” Billing itself as the Expedia for telecom deals, WIRESURFER online marketplace provides small and medium businesses with an easy way to research telecom providers and their promotions as well as order services from national carriers for free. They provide a map so you can click on any part of the country to find the best deals nationwide and the layout is slick and clean, so you can compare deals side-by-side. Using wiresurfer, SMBs can compare the offerings from national carriers including AT&T, CenturyLink, Comcast Business Services, EarthLink, InterCall, tw telecom, Windstream and XO Communications. eBREVIA unveiled something they’re calling the eDiligence Accelerator. The company’s initial software employs natural language processing technology developed at Columbia University to assist attorneys and business professionals in analyzing, extracting information from, and summarizing legal documents. Then we moved to fashion. Well, sort of. THREADMATCHER is a social commerce website that allows users to curate the clothes that they both own and wish into virtual closets, and get relevant recommendations by following the curation of others who share as similar style. The team says, “ThreadMatcher provides the ultimate personalized shopping experience. To users, it’s a style expansion. By following the curation of others who share a similar style, users can find out what’s new…