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One of the traditions of the Boulder BI Brain Trust is to serve coffee in mugs labeled by companies who are no longer. If you have a mug sitting around gathering dust and if the mug logo has historic IT value, please send it to Claudia Imhoff at Intelligent Solutions, PO Box 4587, Boulder, CO 80306.

We will forever be indebted to you!
...as we sip our coffee and contemplate the future of yet another IT company.

Last night the New Tech Meetup was a kick! Web 2.0 was spelled a dozen different ways as creative business ventures were pitched. The agenda is simple. Five startups get 5 minutes to present and 5 minutes of discussion. Each time I found myself going through the same cycle - thinking what a dumb idea and then thinking what a great idea by the end.

First up was StartupWeekend.com - a dumb (not!) idea of forming a company, crafting a business plan, and producing a product - all in a marathon weekend from Friday evening to Sunday midnight - all with a bunch of bright but naive folks. They are naïve because they don't realize that it takes months of hard effort to get a new company off the ground. Right? Or maybe not!

About seventy geeks showed up, formed into task groups, and went to work. In the end, the company had 56 cofounders, and a working version of their website VoSnap.com. It is a social networking site to assist people in making decisions, both big and small ones, tapping the wisdom of a small crowd. If their social decision-making insights prove useful, pieces may appear in MySpace and other large social networking communities.

Second startup was FeedIt.com - a dumb (not!) idea of paying for your latte via cell phone. Isn't paying with your Visa card just as easy? Not when you factor in the detailed information that the merchant collects about its customers, enabling the generation of highly personalized offers.

Third startup was Villij.com - a dumb (not!) idea of sharing your travel experiences. The secret sauce is in the tagging so that others can easily relate to your travel interests.

The final startup was Printfection.com - a dumb (not!) idea of printing clothing on-demand. The secret sauce is the quality of ink-jet printing on fabric at a low cost without much manual intervention. They have a $2 special. Try it!

Oh, almost forgot! Don Dodge, director of Microsoft's Emerging Business Team, talked about his background (amazing!) and new responsibilities as ombudsman for innovative startups. It seems that Microsoft is sincerely assisting new ventures with objective advice and cutting-edge technology? What a dumb (not!) idea for Microsoft.

My compliments go to Robert Reich to taming this herd of geeky cats into a pleasant and informative event. It has become a unique asset for the Boulder/Denver entrepreneur community.