Here's a video of her pitch to the judges: (Skip to minute 3:48 to see her start presenting)

Jocelyn, let me know if you see this blog post by dropping a comment below, and I'll give you a bunch of feedback on your pitch!

Here's a video of her pitch to the judges: (Skip to minute 3:30 to see her start presenting)

Mariana has sold over 100 of these Corny Cups at $2.50 each, which is awesome.

Mariana, let me know if you're seeing this post and I'll give you lots more feedback on the presentation!

Here's a video of her pitch to the judges: (Skip to minute 1:39 to see her start presenting)

Here's some feedback for Simran -- please feel free to give her your feedback here as well:

• I LOVE your idea of bringing collaborative consumption into schools & corporate environments.  I'm not super hot on the idea of umbrellas specifically, but if you think of your business as "reducing distractions" to students vs. just offering them the use of umbrellas, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to think about ways to iterate on the business.  And when I say "reducing distractions" what I mean is that really, by offering them umbrellas, you're keeping them + their books from getting wet, which is allowing them to focus better on their schoolwork.
• Your gross margin on the business is only about 30%.  See about finding ways to either get your costs down or raise your price point to achieve a 50% gross margin (meaning that your "costs of goods sold," or production costs, are half of your selling price).  You'll need that margin when you factor in things like marketing & sales costs, breakage from theft or damage, fixed costs, and many other expenses.
• Use a remote when presenting, so you don't have to actually go up to the computer to go from slide to slide.
• Make sure you mention lots more details about your pilot program in your pitch!  Having that external validation from a pilot program is awesome.

I'll give you a bunch more feedback (and others may as well) but first just drop me a comment below so I know you're getting this.  And good luck at the regional competition!

The new Contour+2 camera is like a fine Italian sports car... built in the 1980's, before they got their quality control process figured out.  Awesome and stunning, yet deeply flawed and aggravating. 

Here's my initial review from the brief time I've had the camera.  I'm not yet sure if I'll be keeping it or returning it.  I really want to keep it, but I'm not sure I can deal with its flaws.

This whole saga started because I'm looking for a camera to replace my Kodak Zi8 camera.

The Awesome:

The camera records in 720p or 1080p, and the picture quality is great.  It has an external mic jack (although sadly, it's only 2.5mm mono).  Its profile is sexy (much more so than the GoPro Hero cameras).  I can use my iPhone as a viewfinder, and to start & stop recording, which is awesome.  It comes with a waterproof camera case.

The Terrible:

The camera is inconsistent in many ways.  Here are a few of them:

Complete data loss: By far the biggest issue I have with the camera is that if I record for an extended period while also charging the camera (90 minutes or more, it seems) the camera will lock up, and not stop recording.  In fact, there's no way to stop recording except to pull the battery out.  This has the effect of corrupting the micro SD card and erasing all the video that was taken.  This already happened to me at one important event -- I lost the keynote and many interviews from this event.  I haven't yet found a work-around to this problem, and Contour support isn't very stellar (they moderate their forum, so even just posting issues is a super painful process).

For example, here's a pic where I've turned the recording switch off, but you can see the front recording light is still on:

The only way to get the camera to stop recording was to remove the battery.  This corrupted the data card completely.

Charging: The camera is inconsistent in the way it charges.  For example, In this picture I'm using a PowerGen block to charge the camera.  See the red light on the top of the camera?  That means it's charging.

But if I unplug the USB cable and plug it right back in, the red charging light goes away.  About five minutes later, it'll turn back on.  Why does it take five minutes?  Is it charging in those 5 minutes?  I have no idea.

The internal mic is also just terrible. I mean, so horribly bad that it's unusable.  And what's with having a 2.5mm mono jack?  The folks over at Contour haven't exactly prioritized audio in any way on this camera, which is a shame.

I may return this camera and try the GoPro Hero3 camera out.  It's not as elegant of a piece of hardware, but I'm hoping that GoPro may be more advanced in its software and audio prioritization.  It's a real shame, though.  I really want to keep (and love) this camera.

Here are some other pictures of my "ideal rig" setup with a RODE mic:

I want to share some exciting news: We just released the beta version of Blacklist. 
Check it out here: http://www.blacklist.co/members.html 
You can now start Blacklisting brands & products you dislike or had a bad experience with.

You should also go check out this Startup competition for this "Tech Cocktail" event to vote for the "Hotest San Francisco Startup" http://tech.co/who-is-san-franciscos-hottest-showcasing-startup-poll-4-2013-05

Please vote Blacklist so I can have a chance to pitch it at this cool event and share it along so we can push up the votes.

Let's share the news. 
Looking forward to hear your thoughts.

Best regards, Val

At the Forum, one speaker really stood out:  Trish Mueller, the CMO of The Home Depot.  Her talk about how THD is effectively using mobile inspired me to write a blog about "inherent vs. enhancement engagement" in mobile.

Another great thing that MMA did was having someone draw a visual representation of what was being discussed on a huge 4' by 8' piece of posterboard in real-time.  They they displayed these visual representations of the panels & sessions in the conference area.  I don't know if it was MXM that was actually providing the service, or just sponsoring it, but t was really powerful and well done.  

Here's an example of someone in the process of drawing on the board as the panel was happening:

And here are a bunch of the finished visualization boards:

Just returned from my trip, sitting at my desk:  Top pile is cards I don't recognize (straight to the trash), smaller pile at  bottom are cards I'm following up on.

Whenever I speak at a conference like I did last week, a bunch of people always come up afterwards to hand me their business cards.

Here I am today; just got back from my trip, with a stack of business cards and a vague memory of being accosted by a few dozen people with something exciting to tell me.

So first off, I don't want your business card.  I'd much rather that you contribute in some way on my blog.  That will get my attention 100x more than your business card, and I'll actually look forward to engaging with you.  Here's why that's such a big deal to me.

But if you insist on giving me (or anyone) your business card, then here's a pro-tip:  Write a one-liner on the back of the card, in pen, reminding me what we talked about.  That'll help your card go from the top pile (which is straight to the trash bin) to the bottom pile (which I'm following up on).  This applies to anyone you hand your card to -- and since so few people do it, it's an incredibly high ROI way to get someone's attention.

Daniel - even if our companies die, we (the crazy, whirlwind spirits who give them life) must never. 

If you wanna build something, you gotta be a cockroach. No choice. 

It's with the cockroach spirit we're building SafeApp. SafeApp's like a privacy "nutrition label" for Android apps. We make it dead simple for end-users to see what data the app is accessing, how it's accessing it, why, and what 3rd parties get to see it. The kicker is, we're more than just a "nutrition label," SafeApp's been proven to actually increase installation, 24-hour and 7-day retention rates. 

Here's what I'm wondering: not sure how active you still are with AppMakr, but we're thinking SafeApp might be a great value-add for "developers" using your platform. We could quickly and easily help them mitigate the rising legal risks associated with mobile privacy while also helping them boost retention. 

Does that sound like something you guys would be interested in chatting about? Would love to connect. 

Zeb  

We got the Everylog.com iPhone beta app up on TestFlight per your suggestion. Please email me your and Sue's UUIDs and we'll send you the link to install the beta app. Really appreciate you taking the time to give us the feedback. We're ready for Sue to rip it apart!

I searched for a few minutes but couldn't really find anything better than the zi8.  My requirements are:

• Shoots in HD (prever 1080p but 720p is OK)
• Has an external jack for a microphone
• Has a battery that lasts at least 30 mins; over an hour is preferred
• Can be connected to a power source while being used (for mulit-hour video recording)
• Uses an SD card
• Nice to have:  Can review the video shot on the device

One option would be to use a GoPro, but I don't really need the ruggedness of it (and in any case, I would probably go with the Contour+2 camera, which I consider superior to the GoPro, and can be used with an iPhone as the screen).

But I'd like to find something inexpensive, under $200, so I can produce a bunch of these video rigs for others in my company.  Any tips?  Jeremy Caverly, I'm looking at you for guidance!