Yesterday I spent the whole day on NWEN's Entrepreneur University. I learned many things, but the day started on the wrong foot when I got there at 7AM and it actually started at 7:30AM. Yes, I do want 30 more minutes of sleep.
The opening keynote was by Lynn Taylor (of Taylor Protocols) and it was just bad (see bad advices for entrepreneurs). You expect the opening act to make people joyful and hopeful for the day, but he was very much focused on how companies screw up and how you should fire 1/3 of your employees...
Then I saw Kelly Smith (Curious Office/Pressplane) talking about "surrounding yourself with the right people". Awesome talk. The time went really fast and people could probably listen to him talk for 2 hours.
I didn't see Mike O'Donnell (iCopyright) talk, but I saw him talk twice before and it's too easy to disagree with him and too easy to think he's giving bad advice (which he is, IMO). A friend told me the talk was bad (I told you so).
Kabir Shahani (Appature) also gave a good and unpretentious talk on competition and when to worry and when to not worry about it. He gets it. One of my tweets yesterday said "talk about your business but don't invite competition". The context was some entrepreneurs that really like to boost about their profits, margins, easy sale cycle, etc. Those are bad things to talk publicly because you are inviting others to take a closer look at your industry.
The closing keynote was from Clark Kokich of Razorfish. It was very good. It should have been the opening keynote. Razorfish went through a lot and made it.
Lesson #1: How to give the best presentation
Four of the presentations that I attended engaged the audience more than the others. I don't know if there is a correlation, but all 4 (Kelly Smith, Kabir Shahani, Todd Humphrey and Clark Kokich) repeated multiple times on how those things worked for them and might not necessarily work for you. I really hate when someone giving a presentation thinks he owns the truth. When you say something "this is my experience and it might not apply to you" you disarm the audience. No one will be trying to (mentally or verbally) challenge you. Note to self: Be humble when giving a talk.
Lesson #2: This is my last EU*
This is the fourth time I attended the event and it'll probably be my last. Like with books, I believe you can always learn something new at a conference. However, the value I've got from this event in relation to the 12 hours it cost me doesn't make it worth coming back (BTW, I've got in for free thanks to Todd Humphrey that gave me one of his free passes). That said, I probably will go back to schmooze with friends, entrepreneurs and service providers next year, but I won't stay for the whole day.
I'm the Co-founder & CTO of 
