./emilychang blog

Mike Arrington's TechCrunch 5 party for Shel Israel and Robert Scoble's new book, Naked Conversations, was a big success on Friday night in Atherton, CA. Some 400 people showed up at Mike's house to mingle, hang out, congratulate Shel and Robert, and generally celebrate amidst a great crowd of techies, bloggers, entrepreneurs, tech giants, thought leaders, startups, designers, developers, photographers, and even Douglas Engelbart, the creator of the mouse. Read more...

Thursday night was Kevin Werbach's Pre-Pre-Supernova party here in SF, just a couple blocks away at Cha-Am Thai. The dinner was a great chance to network and chat with leading tech innovators, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. Read more...

On August 20, 1980, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first to summit Mount Everest without the use of bottled oxygen. They accomplished this amazing feat by doing what no other expedition had ever done. They carried all of their own gear, did no route preparation, and did not use supplemental oxygen. They were successful where others were not, because they approached the problem from a different angle. After years of climbing experience, they recognized that their two greatest assets were agility and improvisation in the face of constant change. This philosophical shift enabled them to not only succeed, but to innovate, while others had attempted only to survive. Read more...

Today happens to be the four month anniversary of eHub Interviews, a series of email questions and answers with the creators and companies behind many of the new web 2.0 services and applications that we've been witnessing and using online. According to many of you who write in, the interviews are "one of your favorite parts... it puts a human face to all of these projects. It really adds a valuable dimension to the web review sites." I'm glad to hear it. Among many of the self-appointed roles that I have at/as eHub, the interviews are one of my favorite activities. One of the questions asked in each interview is "What is your design philosophy?" Read more...

Today turns out to be the twenty year anniversary of when George Lucas sold Pixar to Steve Jobs. In the post, "February 3, 1986: Divorce, Mogul Style," Chris Seibold tells of how Lucas decided to "see a smallish piece of his Lucas Film empire" to raise cash to settle his divorce. Given Lucas' predicament, Steve Jobs was able to bring Lucas' initial asking price of 30 million dollars to 10 million. Read more...

Having spent many years developing web products for higher education, I'm always interested when universities or colleges open up their knowledge banks to the public using new technologies (see OpenCourseWare Finder). Read more...

I'm pleased to announce that my Ideacodes partner, Max Kiesler, and I will be on a panel of judges for the ExpressionEngine $15,000 Shootout. Read more...

The JP Morgan and Connector Group Showcase, "a unique forum for companies to introduce their leading-edge products and services to the Silicon Valley's elite group of tastemakers and influencers ," took place on Monday, January 30 at the JP Morgan offices here in SF. Read more...

We had the wonderful opportunity to attend an informal dinner on Monday night here in SF with the Yahoo! design group and a mix of fellow designers, developers, and even some HCI and usability legends. Read more...

I received email from Marc Guldimann tonight from Spongecell, an "absorbful calendar." They're having a launch party here in San Francisco at Ritual Roasters on Wednesday and we'll be stopping by. Read more...

Earlier today, I went to the E27 Technology Symposium at Stanford University. E27 is "a forum for young entrepreneurs to showcase their upcoming or new products to influential representatives from newspapers, popular blogs, progressive companies, universities, and venture capitalist firms." Read more...