November 2008 Archive

UGBT Houston: There's No Place Like...

Feeling well-rested after some incredible spa treatments, I do believe Sarah and I are relaxed enough to see just beyond the UGBT horizon, and it appears that there is only ONE city left. Say whaaaat? True, Boulder is not until December (details to come later), but still, the end is in sight. It's perplexing: on one hand, it's about time Sarah settles down long enough to create her own personal butt groove on the couch. On the other hand, there is a certain sense of melancholy. In addition to spotlighting all the unique book events, the tour featured one key supporting player: the co-working space. When I first mentioned my hopes for Houston, I listed a good group of people, a great space, and, um, drinks to spare.

Not only did I get a very compelling and spot-on personality test by a budding lawyer/entrepreneur and a huge case of Shiner Bock, Caroline Collective was quite the space to behold. All 6,000 square feet of it, that is. Which makes Caroline Collective the largest co-working space in the world- the Emerald City of co-working spaces. Presided over by the Good Witch Erica O'Grady, the Wizard Wettergreen, and their own supporting cast of characters. If I only had a beer.

Co-working Tales from sarah lacy on Vimeo.

It's Shout Out Morning Apparently: Nick Denton, You're Up

I wanted to blog about Denton's gloom and doom memo yesterday, but employers who actually pay me were angrily tapping their feet and pointing to the ticking clock. I didn't finish all that until 11ish or so, at which point Mr. Lacy was angrily tapping his foot and pointing to the clock. Of course, as the day unfolded, the memo got even more interesting with the closure of Valleywag and decision to fold its editor Owen Thomas into Gawker.

A small tribute to the 'Wag is in order. I've had a love-hate relationship with ValleyWag, but mostly love. No other blog has consistently, amusingly or absurdly written about me as ValleyWag. They've stepped over the line a few times, but mostly haven't been mean-spirited, even when loads of other bloggers were. Also, they've always strictly respected my wishes not to invade my personal life and give Mr. Lacy his privacy as a non-Internet "civilian," and even stayed away from skewering Olivia.

Valleywag's "Sarah Lacy" tag shows 80 posts-- many of which I'd never even seen! The most absurd thing they ever wrote? Nick Douglas' post that I'd gotten a half a million dollar book deal. I laughed when he asked me if it was true, and asked if he knew anything about publishing economics, which he apparently took as confirmation. The most inconsequential post about me? That's tough but I'm going to say the one about what shoes I was wearing to the Crunchies. The one everyone wished was true? The one that said I threw a drink in Michael Arrington's face at the first lobby. (Always the people pleaser, I rectified that disappointment here.)

Of course the single most famous post about me was written by Nick Denton himself, "Smoking Sarah Lacy." You'll notice before this post it was nearly impossible to find a photo of me online-- and believe me bloggers tried hard in the wake of the oh-so-scandalous Digg cover. I always laugh when people talk about how "self-promotional" I am, given that for ten years of my career you never knew a thing about me other than my byline.

That wasn't an accident. People judge women harshly and I always wanted my career to be about good journalism, not my personality, gender, clothes or looks. My husband-- a photographer-- didn't even post any photos of me on his blog or Flickr account. I fought with BusinessWeek when they said I had to have a blog photo, and then picked a pretty unflattering one.

Houston: I'm Talkin' to YOU

Sarah couldn't have said it better early this morning. It seems we keep looking at each other with watery eyes that say "It's just this month that's so crazy, not next month right? RIGHT?" She's quite the trooper. I just attempt to keep up with her, which undoubtedly involves a lot of focus, drive, caffeine, and alcohol.

Coincidently, that last one is very apparent, given that I came home yesterday to a giftbox of lovely martini glasses resting on the coffee table. Thus, we just want to let Erica O'Grady and Matthew Wettergreen of Caroline Collective, and the rest of the  folks in Houston know that they are not forgotten! We have some great footage on the way! It's just being tackled in a foggy, sleep-deprived, round-about manner. Kind of like the cab ride below.

Quick Disclaimer: now, we've had some wackadoodle taxi experiences on this UGBT tour. Austin? I think I groped a pedi-cabber the first night, and decided it was appropriate to recount the story to Earl, our driver the next day, who then laughed so hard he got lost in the AMD parking garage. Whoops. And there was the Memphis cabbie, who tried to kill us by going 80 mph down the quiet neighborhood street we grew up on, and then refused to help with our bags. Typical. And who can forget our Toronto taxi experience? I believe the seats were upholstered to look like Winnie the Pooh, complete with ears. And the West African driver kept shouting "MAMMA MIA" and giggling. Weird.

And yet, they all knew where they were going. Which is more than I can say for the new guy below... ah bless his heart (said through gritted teeth).

We Miss You, Paisano

Things are very busy at SarahLacy.com these days. No sooner was I back from London then I had to hustle to finish a long-overdo BusinessWeek column and do about three shoots at Yahoo in two days. This afternoon-- still not quite over the London jet lag and exhaustion-- Olivia and I are trekking up to Sonoma where I'll speak at a two-day event for women in advertising hosted by BusinessWeek. I plan on coming up with exactly what I'll say in the car, because I haven't had another moment to think about it. I hope I don't suck.

Saturday night and Sunday night I am checking into a hotel in SF and sequestering myself until I come out with a new chapter for the paperback version of "Once You're Lucky." I've finally finished the reporting and this is the only way it's getting done. My house is too distracting and it, too, is late. I'm stealing this idea from Philip Kaplan who says that's how he finally wrote his FuckedCompany.com book back in 2000-- only I don't plan to drink quite as much because the book actually needs to be coherent. Then, four more shoots at Yahoo early next week and on Thursday I take off for a week and a half in Mexico. First there's the Young Entrepreneurs Summit in Cancun, then I'm hopping to the other side of the country for a Mexican Thanksgiving with my and Mr. Lacy's families-- my first vacation the year. Of course, by then I'll owe BusinessWeek another column and Gotham edits on that chapter. Oh, and did I mention I also have a very important conference call today that may determine my near-future?

Whew. I found myself saying, "If I can just get through November..." yesterday and then realized I've been saying that about every month this year. Is it naive to hope 2009 will be calmer?

But as I try not to get car sick typing on the Yahoo shuttle down south this morning, I wanted to take a moment to shout out to my first guest blogger on SarahLacy.com, the one and only Paisano. His time here was short, only writing six posts, but many of them were hotly debated and linked to. I'd wanted him to do more, but he got a bit spooked by the backlash of one on Y Combinator that created a firestorm when Arrington linked to it. I tried to convince him this was a compliment and that bloggers should be creating controversy and point out that a good many commenters agreed with him. But as I know full well, it's one thing to say that to someone and another to actually be the person in the middle of said firestorm. So I accepted his resignation with a heavy heart and he went on to the bigger (but not better of course) Mashable, where he's been a sensation.

He was kind enough to give me a shout out in his post yesterday about his blogging anniversary and what he'd learned. Here's an excerpt:

"Around April sometime I was asked for the first time to guest blog for someone else’s blog. It wasn’t just anyone either. It was none other than Sarah Lacy! She was the hottest news from the SXSW ‘08 conference and I was looking forward to reading her upcoming book called “Once Lucky, Twice Shy: Web 2.0”. She and I became acquainted on MySpace and Twitter and she was interested in a tweet I made regarding her employer, Yahoo and the horrible job I thought they were doing with Delicious (a service I loved and still do). So I was flattered and wrote my very first guest post and it was so exciting! I loved being read by a much larger audience and getting intelligent feedback in the comments, sometimes tough medicine is good for you. I went on to write several more pieces so I owe Sarah a great deal of thanks for giving a rookie such a break and so many lessons."

We miss you, Pai! The guest blogger slot is here for you whenever you want to step back in front of the firing squad! ;) Even if you don't know the actual name of my book....

I Can Still Be in London on Your iPod

Here's my guest appearance on the Guardian's weekly tech podcast manned by my ever-brilliant doppleganger Paul Carr. Thanks so much to Charles Arthur and Scott Calloway for being gracious hosts at the Guardian's offices yesterday, thanks to Bobby for not leaving a mess in my kitchen, and thanks to Angus for getting a few pints in us first. ;)

Picture of Charles, Paul and I in the booth...

Leaving London. Sad.

Don't get me wrong: I can't wait to see Mr. Lacy and the cats. And get to sleep in my own bed. Or, say, just get to sleep more than three hours or so. But I'm sad to be leaving London. We're at the airport, sappy Elton John songs are playing and Olivia just looked at me with a pouty face and said, "I didn't feel this way leaving anywhere else we've been to!" And as much as I've loved all the stops on the UGBT this year, I have to agree.

There is just something about the Web scene in London. Robert Loch remarked that people don't support each other's entrepreneurial ventures as much as they should in London, and that may be true. But socially, it's such an amazing bunch of people who would all take bullets for each other. (Yes, even Walshy!)

So as we sip our bloody mary's at Heathrow (cause you know, it's been a whole three hours since the last pub...) Olivia and I want to bestow some awards on our favorite Londoners. We reserve the right to add to this list as we delve through flipcam footage. (Scary)

• Best Karaoke Performance EVER: Simon Procktor with his flawless "Blue Moon"-- I mean, the parts not actually on the karaoke screen. Olivia: "He can dang--diggity me anytime." Extra points for Sam-the-Eagle-like delivery.
• Best Twitter Avatar EVER: Tom Boardman.
• Most Inappropriate Comments: A tie for Walshy and Alex Hoye (Surprise!)
• Most Proper Roast: Judith Clegg. (And by that I mean, the skewering Paul Carr received at dinner...)
• Best Command to Control Out of Control Web Boys: Michelle Acton-Bond- "Drop It. Leave it."
• Only Person to Like the UK Title of the Book Award: Michael Smith
• Only Person Who Can Remember the Title: (We'll get back to you when we find a recipient...)
• Best Facebook Photo Album: Angus Banks (Stealth!)
• Best SarahLacy.tv Foreign Correspondant: Paul Carr (Video to come!)
• Most Improved Dancer: Robert Loch (Video to come!)

The Epicness of London, Part 1

I'm sitting in my hotel at 4:30 pm, sipping a latte, and munching on my third BLT this week (this one actually has bacon!) I'm pretty sure I've still got remnants of make up on from the night before. All my grand statements about how the nature of my business is to meet people and schmooze aside, this blog post might be the first "proper" work I've done all week. I'm also disturbingly sore. My throat is scratchy. My gut hurts from near-non-stop laughter (mostly at Robert Loch and Paul Carr, not with. See below.) My liver has to be groaning from over-exertion. And for some odd reason, today my triceps are sore. No idea on that one.

I know we throw around the word "epic" quite a bit, but this has been an epic trip. So epic in fact, that I'll have to detail it in a few posts. And don't worry: We've got flipcam footage. A quick taste is below.

I guess the most important thing to note is how fabulous the book launch party went on Friday. It was held at the Soho Revue Bar-- the second oldest strip club in London and had a standing room only crowd and a bar graciously sponsored by Fidelity Ventures. Mr. Loch and Mr. Carr interviewed me on stage and mostly behaved. I believe there's footage somewhere I'll try to find and post. As you can see from this post, I still haven't learned tact, and I'm quite sure I offended someone with all that "honesty." I mean, don't ask me to call out bad VCs in the Valley and not expect an answer.... Huge, huge thanks to Paul, Walshy and Robert Loch for making it happen.

Also, since this is the second Brit to express admiration for my, ahem, cojones, I feel I should point out for the record, that I am indeed a girl. Now we're off to have a "proper roast" Judith is graciously preparing. More tomorrow. (If we survive another night with this crew.)

Untitled from sarah lacy on Vimeo.

My Nerves are Shot....

...about this election. Which is why I'm glued to the TV in an airport bar relieving tension through the almighty cocktail. However, I can't bear to listen to pundits battling over blue states and red states, so I'm listening to a new playlist instead. Thank vodka Steve Jang, a SarahLacy.com favorite and iMeem exec, compiled a list of Barack Obama's top ten favorite songs. So in between gulps and stomach flips, I'm singing out loud to some Rolling Stones, and fistpumping to Kanye. Which means I am literally Baracking the Vote.

We all know SarahLacy.com is nothing but bi-partisan, so I'll also listen to John McCain's playlist too. When I'm trying to pass out in my middle seat on our plane to London. Thanks Grandpa!

Election eeeeeek! from sarah lacy on Vimeo.

Entrepreneurs around the World: Call the Movers

Recently I was re-watching a video interview I did with Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington leading up to September’s TechCrunch 50 event. Unfortunately it wasn’t the outtakes, which were L-O-L hilarious, and sadly never aired despite my best lobbying efforts.

At one point, Michael loses interest completely and just starts looking around the studio. Meanwhile, Jason keeps pretending we’re a the staff of a local news show. He of course is the anchor, “Big Mike” is on sports and I’m the weather girl. (Why am I always the weather girl?) Then there’s the part where Arrington call Jason out as a criminal for playing in all sorts of illegal poker rings in LA. It was about 45 minutes of studio time to get four short clips. And it ended with me burying my head in my hands and saying, “Please, just get out of my studio now.”

Believe it or not, there was some good content to come out of it, and one statement Jason made struck me anew the other day: “It takes five to ten years to crack the Valley.” He said it in context of the conference helping to give people a leg up. But really, there are no shortcuts. Only two things get you there: Hard work and time.

More Pain Coming for Online Video

My sympathies go out to the people behind the shows canceled on Revision3 last week. Clearly, a lot of fans were upset. You could see it in the comments on CEO Jim Louderback's blog: People loved the shows that were canceled and outraged that Rev3 would do such a thing. That outrage fed itself as they read each others comments. "See! Other people loved these shows too! How could you cancel them?!?!?!"

I have no doubt they were loved and no doubt Jim did the right thing. And that weird dichotomy shows why we still don't have full-fledged original content channels online: Video is hard to do well and video is expensive.

That causes two problems that are still hurting original video content online especially as we enter a protracted downturn: Audience and money.