One of the challenges of living your life out in the open is signaling where you are going to be. I’ve struggled with this on and off, tried a bunch of different web services, and have never been happy with any of them. I’m going to keep trying, but in the mean time I’ve decided to put a calendar up on my blog using Google Calendar.
It shows two things:
- Which city I’ll be in by day
- Any public events that I’m attending or speaking at
As with anything “calendar” be wary of time zones. All the time zones listed here are in mountain time.
Feedback and suggestions about other approaches welcome.
good idea – look forward to the GEA event tomorrow (which is so super-secret that it doesn't get public notification, i see – good thinkin')
Comment by tfalls — October 27, 2009 @ 6:21 pm
Super secret eh.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 27, 2009 @ 6:29 pm
I struggle with this same thing…and in fact a couple of us are building http://www.tym.ly with the idea of helping people talk about 'where they are going to be'…or even better to help people answer "where are my friends going to be"…
It's still VERY early in the idea stage (but it more or less works)…and I've got to build out some widgets and related features so it's even easier to share your schedule with people…but would love feedback from any others that are looking to answer these same kinds of questions…
Comment by @falicon — October 27, 2009 @ 7:27 pm
I just sent an event to the email on the site and it didn’t show up. Did I do something wrong?
Comment by Brad Feld — October 27, 2009 @ 7:49 pm
That's the newest feature (as of last week)…probably just my horrible code skills showing up again…I'll debug and let you know (one thing that I def. have to work on is documentation for the site as a whole though…not sure if the site explains it yet or not, but you have to first associate your twitter account to have a tym.ly account, then tie your email address to your tym.ly account for the email-to-calendar feature to work)…
Awesome that you gave it a go though (THANKS!)…will work on much harder on the interface, usability, documentation, and features now that I know there are a few others out there (outside of myself) interested in an app like this actually working!
Comment by @falicon — October 27, 2009 @ 7:55 pm
I tied in my email address. I don’t think I did with my twitter account.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 27, 2009 @ 7:57 pm
Actually, I did both (email and twitter).
Comment by Brad Feld — October 27, 2009 @ 7:57 pm
not really. just trying to create an aura of exclusivity for our attendees…have any fun topics to speak about?
Comment by tfalls — October 27, 2009 @ 8:05 pm
Yep – debugging it now…it should have logged either a note or an event for you…did the 'from address' match the address you tied to your account? Also if you want you can email me directly at info@falicon.com with questions, comments, or suggestions at any time…
I'll do a bunch more testing and debugging and then drop you a note on Twitter when I get the email-to-tymly feature fixed up…in the meantime, you should still be able to log events via @tymly , d tymly, or by using the #tymly hash tag … thanks again for taking the time to check it out (and especially for letting me know that you hit a problem so I can address it!)
Comment by @falicon — October 27, 2009 @ 8:06 pm
I’m going to cover whatever y’all want me to talk about.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 27, 2009 @ 8:07 pm
It should.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 27, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
Brad: If "scheduling" is also a problem, you should check out http://timedriver.timetrade.com/.
p.s. Given the "issue" surrounding "pay-to-present" events for entrepreneurs, I thought you might like to know that I just saw an ad for http://Events.StarlightInvestments.com on your blog. I'm not sure how you can restrict your ads, but this was integrated so well I almost thought you were a "proponent" or sponsor:)
Comment by David Solomont — October 27, 2009 @ 8:24 pm
Re: StarlightInvestments. Groan. I guess I could whitelist them but I imagine they’ll just buy around that.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 27, 2009 @ 9:15 pm
I use the following google calendars as a hub:
– personal events
– location
– subscribed calendar for tentative/busy info on client-related meetings
I also have an InstaMapper account which is really cool. It has an API for pinging your current location from a GPS. They've also released neat apps for a few mobile phonen platforms.
Google and Instamapper allow embedded widget versions so I pull it all together at http://dwightgunning.com/context
Comment by Dwight — October 28, 2009 @ 8:22 am
Fantastic. Instamapper is a great find – thank you!
Comment by Brad Feld — October 28, 2009 @ 11:23 am
Ouch –
let me understand this. I pay $1300 fro the privilege of seeing a bunch of pre-screened investment opportunities. If i have interest then i assume that there will be a buy side or sell side fee inserted – the first being onerous, the second i am sure making the deal much more expensive.
If i am an entrepreneur i pay many thousands for the privilege of presenting?
Here is the deal: if you need the first, then you should not be in the business of investing in start-ups, and if you need the second, then your chances of being funded by a great group just went off the cliff.
And how were they FINRA authorized?
cant you black list advertisers brad?
Comment by mark slater — October 28, 2009 @ 1:12 pm
Oops – I meant blacklist.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 28, 2009 @ 1:14 pm
Yeah – i'll try to blacklist them right now. It'll be entertaining to see if I can find it in Google AdSense. If they are tricky, they'll just create another landing page and go around it, but I doubt it's worth the effort to them.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 28, 2009 @ 1:15 pm
I notice that I can tell from a few public and semi-public sources (your blog, LinkedIn) when you'll be travelling. I usually think about the security risk associated with announcing that your home may be unattended during these times. Does this concern you or Amy?
Comment by Steve Bergstein — October 28, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
No love for Texas? Would welcome you to Dallas should your schedule permit.
Comment by Jack Zedlitz — October 28, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
To date we haven’t been concerned, especially because Amy is moving around all the time also!
Comment by Brad Feld — October 28, 2009 @ 9:08 pm
My folks still live there so I’m sure I’ll make my annual pilgrimage – er – about once a year.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 29, 2009 @ 12:00 am
Brad – I've actually been using http://www.plancast.com to solve this problem, and although they are "early", I think they are onto something.
Worth checking out.
Comment by @danmartell — October 29, 2009 @ 1:39 am
Just as a follow up, the email-to-tymly feature should be updated and working now (and if there is a problem finding the proper account, it should bounce an email back to you explaining the issue)…
Comment by @falicon — October 30, 2009 @ 1:59 am
Plancast.com is pretty cool. I'll also throw mine into the mix as well, buddyblip.com. Seems were doing some similar things, would be interesting to talk.
Comment by Tobin — November 2, 2009 @ 5:57 am