Nobel Peace Prize winner and micro-lending pioneer, Muhammad Yunus was the focus of this tech-humanitarian star-studded event. The Distinguished Tech Awards Committee chose him as the recipient of the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award, sponsored by Applied Materials.

Applying Dreams

ValleyZen spoke with Applied Materials CEO, Mike Splinter who said, “The Award is inspired by Jim’s [James Morgan’s] belief that technology can help individuals reach their full potential and translate their dreams into solutions for a better world.”

Banking for the Poor

Before the gala, we met and spoke to Grameen Bank Founder, Muhammad Yunus. Yunus has witnessed excruciating human suffering, traveling to the darkest corners of the planet to help those in greatest need. BUT– his physical presence overflows with joyousness. Drue was struck by his smile–radiating in all directions, continually expanding.

From Nashville to Bangladesh

A cool coincidence, –Bill found that Yunus attended his alma mater. Vanderbilt University, in Nashville Tennessee. Bill’s firm has endowed the Fenwick and West Lecture series at Vanderbilt law school.

The Zen of Yunus

Yunus’ remarks were real – cutting sharply through rhetoric and fancy words. Instead of saying something grandiose, his bare words gripped the audience. Speaking about his inspiration for micro-lending he said:

“My efforts were very small – created out of desperation. When you are desperate you do a lot of strange things…Giving the $27 dollars to the first 42 people. Nobody in their right mind would have even thought about it. But I did it with all the seriousness, and challenged the bank to do the same…”

Today 130 million benefit worldwide from microcredit.

Yunus: What sub prime crisis in the microcredit world?

“They said poor people are not credit worthy, and now 32 years later today…the poor turned to be better credit worthy!! You have to think differently to see how the world can turn around…We have given more than 700,000 housing loans and we never had a sub prime crisis.”

Intel Fortune Cookie Wisdom

Intel Chairman of the Board Craig R. Barrett left us with a humble piece of wisdom. He read the fortune from his cookie at his favorite restaurant Chef Chu’s —“A small deed done is better than a great deed planned.”

Nominations for 2009

Have someone in mind for 2009? Nominate them! Click here to watch the nomination video.

Making a Machine ZEN

At a private reception hosted the night before the conference at the Tech Museum, we spoke with Ben Goertzel. Drue asked Ben if a machine could reach enlightenment. Please check out his response. It’s sure to provoke you:

“If you take a fairly mechanical view…then you can say there are certain activation patterns in the brain that correlate with a state of enlightenment. So you could make an AI with a similar kind of structure. It would be an enlightened computer. Of course, then it gets interesting, because a human —to get in that state of mind (which I wouldn’t claimed to have done) has to go through years and years and years of systematic practice. With an AI you could just build it and…then you could just copy it like a computer program.

In that sense – it would seem possible that AI has greater potential for enlightened states of mind than people. For us, meditation practice is so much a struggle against emotions, wired into your hind brain and then against your tendency to get distracted by various things. But an artificial mind wouldn’t have to be built with those problems in the first place…It’s very interesting. All this is very speculative. You’d actually have to build the AIs, experiment with them and asked them what they experienced.“

But to build this AI, we wondered about the presumptions you would have to start with. First, how do you answer the question — What is enlightenment? Hopefully comments from YOU our reader community, will give some partial or whole answers. ValleyZen dares you!

Kurzweil on ValleyZen

When we talked to Ray Kurzweil he told us that he liked the name and concept “ValleyZen” very much. When Drue asked him about the importance of Zen in the Valley he riffed on the logic-breaking, satori-inducing Zen Koan: “Koans are very compelling…we live in a world where we need to get away from pat answers more than ever.” Bill immediately thought of the impact koans could have on our education system. What do you think?

A ValleyZen Koan

So at the end of the next day after listening to Kurzweil’s final speech, we thought it would be great to challenge Kurzweill with a ValleyZen koan.

“We have a ValleyZen koan for you…

If as Shunryu Suzuki says — A Zen mind is a beginner’s mind – Can an Artificial Mind Become a Zen Mind?”

“Machines will be able to multi-process better than us, so yes they will be able to meditate and carry on a conversation — all while engaging in a romantic relationship in Second Life with a biological human,” he smiled.

ValleyZen readers – if you have a response to the koan or thoughts on enlightening machines please share!

Peter Diamandis, X Prize Founder Exclusive Interview

Peter Diamandis’ motto is The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself! (See our previous ValleyZen post on Peter Diamandis and X Prize. He gave a rousing presentation at the culmination of the conference. “Why do we explore space? …There are three drivers, Fear, Curiosity, and Wealth.” His next statement was met with laughter:
“You can easily measure the ratio of fear to curiosity as the ratio of the Defense budget to the science budget.”

Are you our next Trillionaire?

Listen up!!! — Diamandis outlined the path for the planet’s first trillionaires. The financial potential of mining asteroids for iron, iridium, platinum, osmium or palladium is out of this world. A single asteroid could yield $22 trillion in metal. “Everything we hold of value on earth, metal, minerals, energy, real estate are in near infinite quantities in space. It is fundamentally the future — the same way we Americans thought of Alaska in the 1850s as a vast faraway resource-laden land.”

A 100 Billion Dollar Hotel

“I’ve had the honor of founding Zero G and co-founding Space Adventures – We fly folks into orbit on the Soyuz. Instead of going to the socialist US we go to capitalist Russia.” A slide of the international space station came on screen — “And this is the hundred billion dollar hotel we fly them to.”

“I like to think of space tourists as self-loading carbon-based payloads that come with their own money,” smiled Diamandis.

Stephen Hawking and Newton’s Apple in Zero G

Especially awe-inspiring were photos that Peter Diamandis shared of his recent trip into Zero G with world renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. They flew with an apple as a tribute to Isaac Newton. Hawking holds the professorship at Cambridge University that was held by Newton in the 1600s.

Rumors of the Singularity University

Yes..that’s all that can be said!

Afterwards, hundreds of conference attendees poured into the Montgomery Theater lobby, abuzz with spaceflight and X Prizes of the future. Immediately following, Bruce Klein, Singularity Summit Producer and Director of Outreach arranged for ValleyZen to do an exclusive interview with Diamandis, on the main stage. Watch the video clip:

Senator Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, Senator Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden and special guests, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King took center stage. National Co-Chair Women’s Leadership Initiative, Eileen Donahoe set the tone for the day with her moving introduction for Oprah Winfrey.

One of our favorite panels was on Economic Security and featured the brilliant Robert E. Rubin, Former Secretary of the Treasury, and Director and Senior Counselor to Citigroup, Inc., Laura Tyson, Former National Economic Advisor to President Clinton, and moderator Mellody Hobson, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Ariel Investment Trust and Good Morning America financial contributor.

Drue had a special exhibit of her original paintings that was on display including her post-Katrina tribute scroll Return to Old and New Orleans and the ValleyZen Crane.

A grand highlight was for ValleyZen to meet the Bidens as well as speak personally with Michelle Obama.

Michelle’s calm beauty imparts a sense of Zen calm to those next to her. Her warmth is palpable. She seems to have an otherworldly capability of stretching out time and suspending or pausing all that is whirring about her.

Drue had an inspiring conversation with Michelle Obama about the importance the arts must play in rebuilding America. Michelle was entirely in tune with that— and down with it. Art can strengthen America’s image abroad with cultural diplomacy. In addition —it’s more important now than ever to cultivate creativity, our most precious resource, albeit renewable. That’s a message the Silicon Valley audience can dig.

Drue wore the iconic Flag Dress by Catherine Malandrino.

On Sunday, famed video game developer Richard Garriott launched into space aboard a Soyuz TMA spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. For more than $30 million, he has become the sixth private citizen to travel into orbit.

The Russian rocket lifted off on schedule at 1:01 p.m. (3:01 a.m. EDT), carrying precious cargo including a revolutionary experiment in art —the first in-space art exhibition. Highlighting the importance of private space travel to future generations, Garriott is hosting this zero-gravity art exhibition. Included is an original brush painting by Drue Kataoka, created for this historic mission.

Drue’s original painting, UP! is quintessentially Zen. What is UP!?
Is it a conceptual work or art or a traditional one. It is both and neither!

Below is the written description of her painting that Garriott has taken with him to show the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

UP! by Artist Drue Kataoka

It is a rocket in the initial stages of take off.
It is a Sumi-e brush in the middle of a brush stroke.

This is “Up!”: a conceptual painting symbolizing the complex layers of meaning embedded in the first in-space art mission. Realized in the ebony-inked brush strokes of the ancient Zen art form of Sumi-e, “Up!” is modern and eternal. This artistic message to the universe carries the transience of the gravity-defying thrust of the rocket into Space and the eternal human quest for beauty and knowledge.

Watch this exciting video that includes stills of UP!

Meet “Up!” The Concept

Like a Space mission, there is a terrestrial and a spatial (cosmic) element to “Up!” There is the part that will go into Space, and the part that will stay on Earth. Drue’s complete original painting is 22″x30″ inches. On board is the 14″x20” part of the original painting selected by Richard
Garriott that has gone (UP!) with him into Space. The rest has been left (as a “Mission Control”) on Earth. Thus the unity of the cosmic and terrestrial parts of the painting will symbolize the duality of the mission, the Space program, and humanity’s love affair with Space.

The Image

In Sumi-e, an ancient Zen art form, meaning is carried through monochromatic, clean brush strokes—but even more in what lies between these brush strokes, the empty space, the area of the imagination. To see between the brush strokes, open your third eye—your creativity and intuition will
guide you.

The image is a rocket in the initial stages of take off, all engines firing, fighting gravity to elevate the human spirit beyond the confines of Earth. It is also the brush of an invisible artist completing a simple but also incredibly nuanced brush stroke. But most of all, it is the intersection of the two—a rocket completing a brush stroke and a brush stroke overcoming gravity to leave Earth. Zero Gravity Art.

Collaboration between Art & Science

Drue invited Mr. Garriott to select the part of the painting that will join him in Space. Here was his choice:

Richard Garriott’s Selection

“Actually a challenging artistic question…

While I enjoyed the “original” position the box was in. I have decided to attempt to make a “cut” that creates a smaller piece which displays the spirit of the whole in a way that makes it perhaps the independent spirited offspring of the larger piece, but still clearly on the same “journey.” Sort of as I am the offspring of my astronaut father. Here is my selection!”

According to Garriott’s specifications, Drue cut the piece selected for spaceflight out of her painting, and sent it to Space Adventures, Ltd. for Space training and then—for launch into Zero gravity. The “terrestrial” part stays as the Mission Control on earth, waiting for the return of the “spatial” piece. When the mission completes, the two parts will be reunited in a charitable auction conducted by Garriott and Zero Gravity Art Inc. The proceeds from the painting’s auction will benefit the Challenger Center, an international, not-for-profit education organization that was founded by the families of the astronauts lost during the last flight of the Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986.

Yesterday, the Dow Jones fell below 10,000 points. Stress and risk are everywhere: the financial crisis, the deepening recession, the threat of losing one’s job and savings. Staying afloat in a sea of red ink is hard.

Sourcing from the ancient wisdom of Zen provides timeless lessons in a world of chaos. As a Sumi-e artist, the Zen principles are alive in my brush every moment. I take lessons from my brush. Here are three:

1. Spare your brush strokes

Less is more. In my Sumi-e paintings, I strive for maximum meaning and expressiveness with a minimum of brush strokes. This makes the few brush strokes more powerful. I focus as much creative energy on the “not-strokes,” that is the space around the strokes, as on the brush strokes themselves. Quality rules over quantity. It also makes me think: what is the most important, most characteristic, signature aspect of my subject matter? The outcome is a deeper understanding, and as a result—better representation, of the person or object I paint.

Similarly, in a frenetic world of economic crisis, you cannot do everything, fix everything, be everywhere. With the outside world in flux, look inside yourself and find what is most important, what matters most to you. Look at your busy schedule as an opportunity in disguise that will help you rediscover, and then focus on your priorities—family, friends, and health.

Then, practice the economy of brush-strokes of a Sumi-e artist– and eliminate.

2. Embrace the Empty Shikishi Board

The empty shikishi board in Sumi-e roughly corresponds to the empty canvas in Western painting. But it is much more meaningful—because Zen aesthetics and philosophy focus on the infinite possibilities that an empty shikishi board creates. Emptiness is freedom—the freedom to do things however you want. By contrast, clutter enslaves you, chaining you down.

In a world of financial crisis, emptiness liberates. Remove unneeded objects from your life that add anxiety. Unneeded items only add stress, demand your attention and scatter your creative energies.
Consider giving these things away or freecycling them. They don’t necessarily have to go straight to the landfill.

Similarly, eliminate unneeded emotions, attachments, relationships. Emptiness creates opportunities.

3. Reinvent Yourself

As a Sumi-e artist, I reinvent myself with every painting. During the creative process, I deeply research and understand my subject matter. I become one with the subject of my painting. If I paint a bird, I become the bird; if I paint an athlete, I become the athlete; if I paint a spiral, I become the spiral. Every painting has to be created like the first and only painting in the history of the world, originating from an empty shikishi board—a radical process of reinvention.

In a time of crisis, reinvent yourself! Take a fresh start, and build yourself, your career, your world from scratch. A crisis is an opportunity—grab on to it. From the devastation after the storm—rebuild your world however you want it to be.

-Drue Kataoka

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!

24 Feet Tall on the Red Carpet

Last night the red carpet rolled for a lavish celebration hosted by Frank and Denise Quattrone, Tech President Peter Friess and The Tech Board. Check out behind the scenes photos here on our Flickr set. 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.

The Brilliant Galluzzi…& Galileo’s Middle Finger

We sat and talked with the curator of LEONARDO: 500 Years into the Future, Prof. Paolo Galluzzi, the Director of the Institute and Museum of the History of Science (Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza) in Florence, a museum that includes Michelangelo’s Compass (Compasso detto dei Michelangelo), Galilelo’s Telescope Lens (Lente obiettiva di Galileo) and Galileo’s Finger (Dito Medio della Mano Destra di Galileo).

The Zen of Leonardo

Galluzzi shared high hopes for LEONARDO: 500 Years, an exhibit which was a blockbuster at the Tokyo National Museum last year. There over one million visitors flocked to that exhibit, entitled The Mind of Leonardo – The Universal Genius at Work. Galluzzi said that Leonardo was given a warm reception by the Japanese who were meticulous about translating his work from Italian into Japanese. This led into a fascinating discussion on the affinity between Zen aesthetics and Italian art and design. We will explore more in upcoming posts.

Acclaimed architect Stefano Gris, founder of GRIS Architecture, spoke about the pleasure of architecting this exhibit in a space that is so large and offers so many possibilities. Indeed the exhibit is over 30,000 sq ft with over 200 artifacts. Twenty Italian artisans were flown in to build it. This morning they departed for Florence.

Special Police for Uffizi Paintings

Tech President Peter Friess graciously gave ValleyZen a private tour of the two paintings on loan from the Uffizi Gallery. Two days ago, the paintings made a dramatic entry into the Tech with the San Jose Special Police Unit on hand. A swarm of police cars and a dozen armed gunmen escorted the paintings inside. All we can say is, that has to be the best use of the San Jose Special Police Unit ever. A great metaphor for how important it is to be guardians of great art, and to devote resources to protect that art. When Uffizi Director Antonio Paolucci took out a traditional level to ensure the paintings were hung straight, Peter did the Silicon Valley equivalent — whipping out his iPhone equipped with the iLevel app (which leverages the iPhone’s integrated accelerometers to function as a digital level for picture-aligning).

Vitruvian Man on Ice

The Quattrone family helpe to kick off an exhibit that shines a spotlight on the importance of our following in Leonardo’s footsteps to bridge science and art in Silicon Valley. Giant projections of Leonardo’s Vitruvian man lit up a fantastic horse sculpted in ice, and an endless table of Italian delicacies from baby panini to an assortment of imported formaggi, pasta, and gelati to fortify guests as they prepared to enter the 30,000 square feet of exhibit space. Tech staff were dressed in period costume to transport guests back and forward in time.

Responses from Guests

Pixar Director Jim Capobianco, winner of an Annie Award (animation’s highest award) noted how this exhibit might cure our cultural myopia:

“500 years ago Leonardo looked into the future. Today many of us are so weighed down with the Financial Crisis and the 24 news hour cycle, that we don’t look beyond. This exhibit forces us to look outside of ourselves into the future, and dream.”

Carl Guardino, President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group said:

“This exhibit underscores the parallels between the Italian Renaissance and our own Renaissance happening in Silicon Valley today.”

Board Member James T. Ryder, Lockheed Martin Space Systems said:
“This exhibit shows us we cannot split technical thought from artistic feeling.”

SkinnySongs CEO Heidi Roizen, sartorially sharp in black, and a leftie like Leonardo shared some interesting theories with us about Leonardo’s penchant for writing backwards.

To Reserve Tickets, click here.

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.

Chance & Change
I was working on a novel about surveillance, privacy and security set in Hong Kong and Chance led me to get into contact with Shava Nerad, former Executive Director of the Tor Project, through a social networking site (we knew some people in common through my time as a legal intern at EFF). Her kindness led to an introduction to Rebecca MacKinnon, blogger, former CNN Bureau Chief in Beijing and Tokyo, Public Project Lead for the localization of Creative Commons in Hong Kong and Assistant Professor at HKU’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre. I was fortunate enough to study under Professor Lessig while at Stanford Law School and given his connection to Creative Commons and Rebecca’s work, it was not difficult to find enough common ground to arrange an interview.

I met with Rebecca to get information for my book. Instead, through her kindness and her wealth of knowledge, I walked away with a bag of opportunities that would change the course of my life.

Web Wednesday
One of the things Rebecca recommended was an event called Web Wednesday, an event organized in Hong Kong by Napoleon Biggs. Taking place on the first Wednesday of the month, many English-speaking members in Hong Kong’s Internet scene get together to network, listen to a featured speaker and drink too much alcohol. I went with no expectations; my goal was to observe. By the end of the evening though, I met a former employee of the speaker and we began discussing an idea I had for an Internet site. Chance. My newfound partner introduced me to some IT developers who bought into the concept and joined the team two days later. Chance. Shortly thereafter, I met a friend (a lawyer turned entrepreneur) from my former law firm while passing through San Francisco and asked for his feedback about the project. His feedback was that he wanted to join the project. Chance. Just one month after meeting Rebecca to interview her for my novel, I had the core of the team I needed to execute my idea.

Barcamp Hong Kong 2008 and the Hong Kong Startup Association
Barcamps are the epitome of Chance. The content of the conference depends on the skill-sets and interests of those who show up. The first Barcamp in Hong Kong was held in December 2007 at Yahoo HK’s offices. Then, I was simply a participant looking to learn more about the Internet scene here in HK. This year, the event was held in Turner’s offices in Hong Kong and I was not only a participant, but through my company, a sponsor of the event and a presenter.

Since I formed my company, Socialutions, and its Hong Kong subsidiary, I was constantly struck by the sense that a lot of talented Internet entrepreneurs in Hong Kong are re-inventing the wheel in a vacuum instead of sharing their knowledge with other entrepreneurs facing the same challenges. My business partners and I thought that this was a very inefficient and dysfunctional state of affairs and we wanted to create a grassroots organization in Hong Kong that would become a forum for Internet entrepreneurs to share knowledge with each other, learn from experts in various fields and create an infrastructure that would strengthen the ties of Internet entrepreneurs around the world by cooperating with organizations and groups of Internet entrepreneurs in other regions.

With that goal in mind, we founded the Hong Kong Startup Association (HKSUA) and held a panel at this year’s Barcamp to present the community with our idea to see what feedback they might have and what the community wanted the HKSUA to be. Thankfully, the reception was overwhelmingly positive. Many people came up to us afterwards to say that they had been wishing for something like the HKSUA for a long time. Around 200 people attended Barcamp HK 2008 and in the week since the event, HKSUA’s Facebook Group already has 75 members.

The day also featured a variety of other interesting panels, such as discussions about Augmented Reality, Twitter Visualizing Conversations, Convergence of Desktop & Web Applications, Digital Media Television, Mobile Gaming and other fascinating topics. These photos give a good sense of the spirit and nature of the event.

Closing the Circle
I was an undergraduate in my last semester in 1998 when I happened to pick up the school paper and see an ad for the Judicial Administration Fellowship. I decided to apply on a whim because I didn’t know what else to do. I made it past the initial screening and got the last interview slot. Later, I was told that the committee had already made up their mind about the five people they would select for the Fellowship but somehow, I got them to change their mind during my interview, received the Fellowship and was assigned to the AOC’s Technology Policy and Planning Division. It was through that Fellowship that I met Bill Fenwick who was serving on the Judicial Council’s Court Technology Committee.

Chance.

10 years later and I met Bill again when I was in Silicon Valley pitching for legal representation and he graciously agreed to meet with my business partners and me. Nine months later, in August, I was in San Francisco for a month for meetings and I had lunch with Bill to talk about the state of my company and met Drue for the first time.

Chance.

Now I’m guest posting for ValleyZen.

Chance comes through once again.

Post by Henry Oh, co-founder of Socialutions, Inc., WikiEnterprise and the Hong Kong Startup Association. Henry holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, a M.Sc. in Media and Communications Regulation and Policy from the London School of Economics, a B.A. from UCLA and was the recipient of a Fulbright grant. Henry has studied the Internet since 1993, with a focus on privacy, free speech and open source technologies.

Thank you to Jim Hornthal, Venture Partner at CMEA Ventures for shooting.
Angels Say Cut Clutter
ValleyZen gave top points to the panel “The Role of the Angel Investor” which featured Ron Conway, Yossi Vardi, David Kidder, Chris Sacca, Matt Coffin, and was moderated by Jason Calacanis. Each of the panelists were asked—What does the ideal email from a hopeful entrepreneur look like? We liked Conway’s ruthlessness when it came to cutting clutter in email.
“One paragraph in the body.
One page executive summary.
That’s it!”
Yossi Vardi seconded the notion of removing as many unnecessary ingredients from e-mails and business plans as possible. “Do you want to know what sausage and business plans have in common? Only people who don’t know how they are made eat them.”
Chris Sacca revealed to ValleyZen his secret technique for clearing his mind of Valley clutter – “running and juggling simultaneously!”

Blah Girls Glorify Drugs, Poop and Silicon(e) Breasts
TechCrunch50’s starting lineup of startups included four centered on youth, namely Shryk, Hangout Industries, BlahGirls, and Tweegee. Ashton Kutcher’s BlahGirls was indeed one small step for man, one thousand steps backwards for womankind. The new web property by Katalyst Media aimed at girls and women 13-35 did its world premiere for a TechCrunch audience that was 90%male.
Blah girls features three girly girl cartoon characters on a “Krackintosh.” In his own words, Kutcher describes Blah Girls as an “interactive animated web series focused on celebrity culture.”

Culture Watered Down
To give you a sense of the Vitaman water sponsored animated cast, Britney introduces herself as different from the Britney who “shaves her coochie.” Krystle drools over “SiliCONE Valley” and yelps “We should totally get boob jobs!” This is interesting for a site that Kutcher promises is “designed just for teenage girls.” Poo is launched into the air and Pop culture becomes poop culture in a fav segment called Celebrity Crap. Later Krystle describes women after pregnancy as getting “GI-Normous Va-JJs.”

Calacanis noted that TechCrunch50 should be like Sundance, where everything is judged on merit. The merit of the scatalogical “blah blah blah” of the Blah Girls remains to be seen. However Kutcher’s intuition to position himself in the middle a new budding romance between Hollywood and Silicon Valley is smart indeed. We should all keep an eye on those first awkward embraces.

Two Thumbs up
Overall ValleyZen gives the conference and many of the exciting startups from DotSpots to OpenTrace two thumbs up. Arrington and Calacanis successfully cultivated a Sundance-like vibe. Creativity crackled in the air as entrepreneurs, VCs, engineers, lawyers and journalists rubbed elbows and looked towards the next big thing. Ron Conway put it best in expressing the crunchy energy beneath the multi-colored lights: “When you meet an entrepreneur you are looking into the future. You are talking to a crystal ball. That is how I felt when I first spoke with Larry and Sergey.”

Even a wifi crisis and chair shortage were handled with aplomb. Calacanis helped attendees personally with the chair shortage, while Michael Arrington kept calm 1700 anxious people for whom an internet connection is oxygen. Arrington played it cool with his remark on imperfection, “The conference is still rough around the edges. That’s part of its charm.”

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

Welcome to the WellHome
In case you haven’t seen a WellHome, this one is penthouse level with 360 views that stretch to SF and Mount Diablo. Spinning bikes face out towards the view. Team Wellsphere hopped on bikes and kept talking. “We do this often,” said Gutman. Why not have a Board meeting and burn calories at the same time? (For the record, this is the first ValleyZen interview conducted partly on a stationary bike).
The WellHome is also stocked with an impressive spread of healthy whole and raw foods from figs and papayas to yogurt and freshly squeezed juices.

What is a WellSphere?
Wellsphere started in 2004 at Stanford B-School as a project of Ron Gutman and Dave Kashen. Dr. Geoffrey Rutledge (known to the community as “Dr. Geoff”) joined, and the core team was formed.

Why is TODAY’S LAUNCH Important?
Until now, the primary focus of Wellsphere has been wellness information. Starting today, it launches the largest and most comprehensive information source for medical information and illness-related communities. The enormous amount of information is glued together by an impressive medical search engine (though the Wellsphere team prefers to call it a “health knowledge engine,” so as to signal it is not competing with Google). It is indeed a major redesign, and with it Wellsphere puts an ambitious claim to lead in a very competitive and densely populated industry: health-related information.

What Differentiates them from the Competition?
1. Comprehensiveness of quality information: while their competitors have 50-200 active health-related bloggers, Wellsphere has 1,500. It has professors at the prestigious medical schools of Stanford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and others blogging for their network.
2. Holistic focus on both the mind and the body: with its large base of bloggers who share similar medical experiences, Wellsphere provides an impressive support base—not just medical information.
3. Ease of finding what you are looking for: We encourage you to test side-by-side the search functionality of Wellsphere and its competitors, and you will be impressed. We did a non-scientific experiment by searching for “autoimmune diseases” on wellsphere.com, dailystrength.org and webmd.com. Then, tried the same sites with the misspelling “auto immune disease.” Wellsphere won.

Here are the Screenshots:
Wellsphere 1 2
DailyStrength 1 2
Web MD 1 2

Why is Wellsphere Valley Zen?
1. We like the clean design despite the huge quantity of info.
2. Treating the mind and the body
3. Focus on applied knowledge and shared experience

ValleyZen Exclusive Video
Check out this interview with CEO Ron Gutman and CIO Dr. Geoff Rutledge.

Post by
Drue Kataoka
Svetlozar Kazanjiev

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 gather some ValleyZen reflections on baseball. We asked Fenwick’s guests to share their thoughts on the quintessentially American sport of baseball in Silicon Valley. What makes it different here? What makes it us?

Casual but Data Intensive
Will Fitzpatrick, Corporate Counsel for the Omidyar Network says, “Baseball, like a lot of things in the Valley might look casual but it is data-intensive. It is highly statistics driven—the more you know the more you like it. There is a big Geekside to it – this obsession with detail. It’s passive but the number crunching side has Valley appeal. The classic software engineer experience is watching baseball with a group of friends, listening to stats, checking historical stats, playing fantasy baseball all at the same time.” The elastic nature and overall structure of the time in baseball allows for this intensive multi-tasking.

Slow game - Fast-Paced Valley
Mike Sands, Fenwick & West Partner and Chair of the Electronic Information Management Group, notes the tech connection, “Just look at the litany of telecom companies that have had their name on the park—Pac Bell, SBC, AT&T. Also baseball here is a way for folks in Silicon Valley to get a slice of normal Americana in a Valley that moves too fast for its own good.”

We vs. I
Geoffrey Jones, General Counsel, KKR Financial pointed out the we/I paradox: “Baseball gives people in the Valley the chance to plug into classic American culture. Like Valley culture it’s both team and yet individual too.”

The Space Between
Robert Brownstone, Fenwick & West Law & Technology Director is qualified to speak on the subject as he “lives eats and breathes baseball.” Brownstone looked over the park and said, “No timeclock.
No matter how far behind you are, you can catch up—-if you don’t give up. Stubbornness, no time limit. You don’t know when it is close to over, you don’t know how long the experience will be.”

“Some people say baseball is boring, but the breaks between action are a nice opportunity to stare, to sit, to have conversation between pitches.” What great commentary on negative space and Zen emptiness in baseball.

Brownstone also commented on the elasticity of time as pitchers intentionally slow down a stressful inning to break momentum of the batting team:
“As an afición of baseball, for me that’s the drama, seeing the pitcher trying to keep himself loose, seeing him stretch out time.”

With the focus and spotlight turning on only ONE person at a time, it is very dramatic, very stark, and Zen.

Jon Stueve, Director of Legal Affairs at Ning, estimates he has attended 75-100 live games in his life. Stueve notes how 9 people are spread out on one very big space. “Baseball evolves slowly. Soccer is slow but involves constant action. Basketball is played by these intense supermen.”

Heroes but Everymen
In a game full of Zen contradictions Andrew Ryan, Manager of Production Operations at Collabnet notes another. “Baseball requires dedication, at the very least 10 to 12 years to be really good at it. And yet there are slightly fat tobacco chewing guys – the everyman” playing the game.

Don’t Rope Me In
Kurt Pletcher, Associate General Counsel at Equinix reflected on Zen freedom: “Baseball moves us leisurely along. Easily digestible bite size pieces. Pitch, hit something happens. It doesn’t rope you in. The manicured lawn, the sky– everything about it says open.”

A Baseball Koan
Baseball has the greatest koans of any sport courtesy of the Yogi Berra, who said

“You can observe a lot by watching ”

What do you think when you watch a baseball game here in the Valley or elsewhere?

Bill Fenwick & Drue Kataoka