BoulderWin: My Selfie Story With Brad Feld

Wow, what a great start to summer 2014! Going to #boulderwin was maybe my open door to a year without injury, surgery, rehab, death of my beloved twin brother, entrepreneur depression, and startup struggles.

I think for sure this is it. No more sorrow, no more pain, no more injuries to my body, no more worries about building a possible failed startup. Yeah, it's boulderwin a special little gift given to those of us who live, breath and understand what building startups is all about. Its success, but not in the form of gaining a well padded bank account.(allthough that's nice) Its success in the form of how many lives are changed for the better because of what your startup built.

Tonight I saw so many shining stars. Every face who had come to #boulderwin had the face of the gift on it. We had come to celebrate the uniting of Twitter with GNIP (pronounced GaNIP) btw, it's ping backwards, the name thought up by Brad Feld, as what GNIP does is essentially a backwards ping! Well, it's more then that. It's super amazing what GNIP does. In a sense to me what they do is Data Research Mining. They take all the Tweets, all the Pinterest, Tumblr, Foursquare, Wordpress, and countless other networks and they absorb it all. They take everything you and I have posted and do amazing things with that data. I'm new to knowing about GNIP, but I don't think it's data mining to know what you shop for, so they can tell a company how to advertise to you, but that could be a part of it. I am pretty sure GNIP is more about what we cannot see. I think they are about taking all the info in and searching for the diamonds of who we are and what we say and do. The amazing things about us humans. I think they are so open to all the data about us, that they will discover things that can be created to help us. Gifts to make our lives better. Gifts to ease the suffering of humanity. 

Ahhh it came out a little grainy, but that's me and Mr. Brad Feld in our selfie! He was so kind when I asked him "Can I get a selfie with you, Mr. Feld?" Oh yes, he said. Brad Feld is the kind of person in real life I thought he would be. Super kind, super down to earth, super cool, yeah I was nervous asking him to do a selfie with me, only because he is one of my many mentors. When I read his blog, I am always blown away by his level of intelligence. It makes me almost feel like I am some backwards person lost in third grade, and maybe I am, but he didn't make me feel like that in real life.

I don't know Mr. Feld but everything I've read about him and every word I've read that he has written tells me, he is the true gift to the startup world. Even more than that he is a gift to our world. He surely blesses every life he comes into contact with, and as with me he blesses so many lives from his blog and other social networks. He probably doesn't even know how many people he has helped, but really the numbers are all on his face in this selfie. Look at his smile, that's for you, yes you, all the people he has blessed, and all the people in the future he will bless. His smile for you! 

#boulderwin, well, I think it was a win for more than Boulder, Colorado. It was a win for the world! We will all be blessed by it. And hey, if you have a super difficult year in life like I have. Just tell yourself the new hashtag word for changing things for the better, it's #boulderwin. That's the word you use when you decide you're in need of things to change and life to be better. Just say I need a 

#boulderwin

; - )

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 And A Big Thank You to GNIP and Twitter and The Foundry Group for throwing a great start to a Beautiful Summer.
It was such a FUN party!