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

On Dec 12th, TEDx Silicon Valley brought together several hundred leading thinkers and doers to talk about Innovations for Social Change. A great lineup included Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Peter Thiel (Clarium Capital/Founders Fund), Thomas Goetz (Wired Magazine), Dr. Clayborne Carson (Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University) and many more. [...]

“We used to have a manager and we got rid of them. We use to have a PR person and we got rid of them. We used to have a [inaudible] and we got rid of them,” Moonalice guitarist Roger McNamee (aka Chubby Wombat) said on stage to the enthusiastic crowd below at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

Sound serious? Sure — the art of subtraction is not an easy one.

McNamee continued “So we turned it all over to Facebook and Twitter and …

As a child, I was enthralled with the works of James Burke. Like the enso, the tales he told had no beginning or end. His work simply explored the “connectedness” of things, both past and present.

I was reminded of James Burke while attending the recent ICANN gTLD & IDN Outreach event in Hong Kong (videos of all of the sessions and materials are available here online)…

Catherine Malandrino and Bernard Aidan invited us to Catherine Malandrino’s Spring Summer 2010 Collection at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in NYC. Staged at the Chelsea Art Museum on the West side of Manhattan, Malandrino placed her models on pedestals instead of walking them down a runway. We arrived early to slip backstage and capture the pre-show mayhem and excitement. Recording star and hip hop diva Mary J Blige, Grammy Award-winning British R&B singer Estelle, Ralph Lauren supermodel and Host of Bravo’s “Make Me a Supermodel” Tyson Beckford, E! Star Kim Kardashian, TLC’s “Who Are You Wearing?” and TV Guide’s “Live from the Red Carpet’s” Keisha Whitaker, the fashion press, NY fashionistas, socialites, and buyers and guests from Japan and Europe all came to check out the show…

Drue and Bill were invited to attend the Churchill Club’s July 23, 2009 program, held at Microsoft’s campus in Mountain View, CA, “The Free Economy: How Companies Make Money From Giving Things Away.” Chris Anderson, whose latest book FREE: The Future of a Radical Price was the moderator of an outstanding panel including five founders and/or CEOs of companies that produce products made of bits. The event started with a short context-setting statement by Chris. He explained how the “zero”-cost of bit product reproduction makes it possible for companies to make money by giving away a large quantity of a product in order to sell at a “Freemium”…

Watch our exclusive interview with Prof. Perl who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the tau lepton, one of the elementary particles forming our world. In this lively video, experience his incredible energy, intellectual curiosity and excitement.

• How Prof. Perl missed “The Call” from the Nobel Committee
• Dining with the King and Queen of Sweden (hint: can’t go to the bathroom, no matter what!)
• Why Physics is the simplest of the sciences…
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Guest Post by Esther Gokhale
Author, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back

Whether in Zazen or Valley Zen, sitting is very much a part of our lives. In Zen sitting, each muscle, bone and ligament has a natural place. The design of the skeleton, the end product of millennia of collaboration between gravity and structure, has a natural balance and harmony. When we restore that balance, the result is stillness and flow. No part of the body is pinched or pulled, no part signals the brain that it needs to shift, toss, turn, tighten or be protected. Structure informs function. Blood, lymph, cerebrospinal fluid and Qi circulate unimpeded. A myriad accumulated injuries and rogue events sort themselves out spontaneously.

If this is not the way you currently sit…

“It’s not brain surgery—It’s economics,” Meg Whitman recalled the take of her brain surgeon husband, Dr. Griffith Harsh, on California’s budget crisis. With a wry sense of humor, and authentic personal stories, Meg shared her impressive vision for a new California at the MEGa Women Bay Area Launch. Pumping up the audience was Statewide Chairwoman Jillian Manus: “there’s so much estrogen in this room, it could blow off the roof.” A diverse audience of female Silicon Valley influencers cheered when Jillian challenged them to go out and make MEGa Women a million strong…

Who are the most influential women in technology for 2009? You had to be with ValleyZen in the Fairmont San Jose last Thursday to be able not only to see but to experience the answer.

Women have gone a long way in tech, and the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology’s Women of Vision’s Award celebration and dinner presented ample evidence of the distances women have traveled. The event was beautifully emceed by CBS News Anchor, Sydnie Kohara with inspirational opening remarks by Telle Whitney, President & CEO of the Institute. The 2009 Women of Vision Awards honored three women who have made significant contributions to technology through outstanding innovation, leadership, and social Impact.

ValleyZen got full access to these inspirational women and the ambitious event. We interviewed the keynote speaker and the award recipients and spoke to numerous other accomplished women in technology, from…

You already know it all about the fabled “Über Entrepreneur” (as he was billed by the Churchill Club yesterday) Elon Musk. How he dropped out of the graduate program in Physics at Stanford after only two days, how he co-founded PayPal and was the largest shareholder when it sold to EBAY in 2002 for 1.5 billion, and all about his latest accomplishments and adventures with Tesla and SpaceX.

At ValleyZen we like to report on what we don’t know about yet, what’s new, what is in the imaginative space. In a Sumi-e painting that’s like the negative space, the space between brush strokes where all possibilities lie. People in Silicon Valley are comfortable with things that haven’t been defined yet and with what is uncertain. That’s exciting.

Yesterday we met with Elon and…