The Importance of Being Earnest
Posted by Jason Cosper | Filed under Events, Geekery, Los Angeles, Rant
A few days ago Michael Arrington dropped a piece of his Silicon Valley into my LA by throwing an absolutely massive party down here. And after talking things over with friends and spending some time thinking about the events of the evening I’ve realized that they are two great tastes that don’t really taste all that great together.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It was great to get some recognition from TechCrunch’s ringleader that LA is a viable technology player by having him throw a 1500 person event with an open bar and Perry Farrell DJ’ing. As far as I’m concerned, that was totally welcome and downright awesome. Seriously, thank you for that.
But I have a modest request to send your way, Mr. Arrington. If you ever plan on throwing one of these gigantic tech mixers here again, please go ahead and leave the drama at home. Because I don’t know how the folks up your way do things — but your actions on Thursday don’t give me a very encouraging idea of how you handle your business and personal relations. One of the things I love about Los Angeles is the fact that the events that get thrown by the locals are — for the most part, anyway — pretty unpretentious and (to borrow a line from Andrew Warner) more about community than conflict.
A little over a year back, we had an issue with some BarCampLA attendees being problematic. And we’re talking far worse than just being annoying to the event organizers. Excessive and open alcohol and drug abuse, making female attendees feel uncomfortable and badgering speakers to the point where talks turned into one way shouting matches made some attendees leery of coming again. We had a few people who were ruining the community because they couldn’t behave like adults.
Instead of banning the people outright from our events and making a scene tho, we issued a code of conduct. If you couldn’t follow it, you were asked to leave and that was that. Yeah, it’s sort of a hippie thing to do — but it worked. The rules kept a tight enough rein on the people causing problems to the point where they either stopped coming or calmed down considerably. Sure, there were folks who didn’t want the people to have the opportunity to show up at all, but excluding people is not in the spirit of BarCamp.
Of course one could argue that the TechCrunch/PopSugar party was a ticketed, private event. Still, you would think that a quick search over the Excel spreadsheet before it was printed and a few emails to let people know they’re not welcome could have spared everyone involved a bunch of unnecessary bullshit.
Anyhow, if you need any tips for throwing an event down here Mike, just let me know. Even if you don’t want to deal with the likes of me, I can put you in contact with people who can help you save a bit more face and perhaps make you come off better than you managed to the other night.
I’m not a total curmudgeon about the evening by the way. The pre-event dinner at Palms Thai (props to Mike Prasad for putting that together), the people I hung out with at the party and the two afterparties that organized themselves via Twitter were fun as hell. What’s more, they boiled themselves down to the people that make this community great. So while the main event left me a bit drunk, cranky and in need of a shower, the rest of the night left me wonderfully full of hope and optimism for what we’re cooking up here. Our potential is limitless — and we’re just getting started.
Motivation
Posted by Jason Cosper | Filed under Music, Quotes
“Everybody keeps on talking about it, nobody’s getting it done.”
*sigh* I hate being one of those new age douchebags that talk about personal mantras — but I still feel compelled to share this.
I have to confess that every time I find myself hitting a brick wall mentally or I start lacking any sort of motivation, the line above manages to find its way into my head — and always at the right time.
And as cheesy as this might end up sounding, whipping out my iPod and giving the track a quick listen actually ends up pushing me forward. At that very second I want to be the person who stops letting the talk and bullshit cloud my mind and instead be the one who starts doing.
So that’s what I do. Well, for the most part anyway. I mean, it can never really be that simple, can it?
Still, I’ve realized the strength of this song. ”Yeah” is my auditory can of spinach. It works really well at giving me short bursts of awesome, and that’s totally fine by me.
So what kicks your ass into high gear? Enquiring minds want to know.
Movin’ On Your Left
Posted by Jason Cosper | Filed under General
One of the nice things about living in North Hollywood is that I’m less than a mile’s walk from the Red Line station. Because of this, I’ve been taking the subway into work every morning. There’s actually a few benefits to this:
- I get a nice walk at the start and end of my work day. And I’ll still continue to call it nice until Summer hits and the Valley gets over 100° F at 9 AM.
- Work pays for my metro pass. Well, they reimburse me for it whenever I get them the receipt. Still, the fact that they’re willing to pick up any of its cost is really nice of them.
- I find that I’m way less stressed when I don’t have to sit in traffic. Listening to a podcast or some music is way more chill when you don’t have to wonder why the guy in the other lane is drifting over for the nth time.
I do have one gigantic pet peeve tho — people who stand still on the left side of the escalator. Now I know that moving stairs are still a novelty to some, but most regular commuters know that the right is for standers and the left is for the folks who like beating those smug stair climbers out of the station.
I know it’s pompous for me to assume that Los Angeles is listening — especially when I have access to my site’s metrics and I know that my traffic falls well short of the city’s population — but please quit being part of the problem, left-standers. And for God’s sake, kindly get out of the way when someone says “excuse me”. I really hate getting pushy, but I swear that I will if I have to.
