Last day in Silicon Day January 22

Hi Everyone,

Today was our last day in Silicon Valley. We left for the airport at 9:30 am. Our plane was planned to leave around 12:30 however due to bad weather we were delayed. We arrived in Minneapolis around 7:00pm. It was a very good flight. I arrived home around 11:00 pm.

Thanks for following my blog,

Bryan

11th day in Silicon Valley

Hi Everyone,

Today is our 11th day in Silicon Valley. Tomorrow we are leaving. This trip is going so fast. Our first stop today was at Peet's Coffee shop to discuss book reports. Today Adam, me, and Aaron presented. The book I presented on was The Numerati.

The first company we visited was Facebook. We met with Dave Fetterman, he talked a lot about what we they look for in college graduates. He was very encouraging. When hiring for a job they look for people that are passionate about the job and they don't focus to heavily on what skills you have. I enjoyed talking with him because he talked more about what opportunities to look for in our future and less about Facebook.

Our next stop was Microsoft. Our first meeting was with Dan l' Lewin. He was one of the first employees of Apple at the beginning of the company. We learned a lot about how Microsoft keeps the Entrepreneurial spirit in their employees when Microsoft is such a large company. It was a honor to get to talk with him. After our meeting with Dan we meet got to see a large computer table touch screen that allowed you to navigate through programs using touch screen technology. It was awesome and they are only $10,000.

After our meeting at Microsoft we met with Neil MacAvoy at Intel. He talked about the steps that need to be taken in order for a chip to be created. It was very interesting and I was excited that I knew a little bit about what he was talking about. We had discussed some of the things he was talking about in my MIS class.

After our meeting at Intel we went back to the hotel.For dinner we ate an Italian restaurant called La Strada.

I had the Grilled Wild Salmon Pantesca for my dinner entree and for desert I had Soffiato di Cioccolato "La Strada" which is warm shokinag chocolate souffle with vanilla gelato. Both were very, very good. After dinner we went back to the hotel and I started packing.

That is all for today.

Bryan

Tenth day in Silicon Valley

Hi everyone,

Today is Wednesday, January 20 it is our tenth day in Silicon Valley. Today we visited Google. We got the opportunity to talk with someone from Google University Relations, Google Enterprise, Google Books, Google Maps and blogger. Then we got to tour the GooglePlex. It was really awesome. I wish I worked at Google. After our tour we ate lunch at Charlie's Cafe. The food was very good. Then we went shopping at the Google Store.

After we got done at Google we went to a Computer History Museum and got to see a Babbage Difference Engine work. After that we went downtown Palo Alto and wandered for a little while. Then we met with Al Brudos, a Luther Alumni, to discuss his experiences as an entrepreneur and investor. He gave a lot of very helpful advice on how to invest and what to do after college. He advised us to take as many opportunities as possible. After our meeting we went back to the hotel and later we ate at Cold Stone.

That is all for today.

Bryan

Ninth day in Silicon Valley

Hi everyone,

Today is our ninth day in Silicon Valley. This morning Jeni, Kiflu, and Drew did their book reports. Then we went shopping in Stanford mall. Today we met with Benetech. This company is a non-for-profit company that creates technology for those that have a disability. For example, they scan books into the computer so the blind can read any book. They find a place where people need help and develop technology that will help them. They are a very interesting company.

After the meeting Kaitlin, Drew, Aaron and I went to Subway for lunch. Then we were off to Sierra Ventures. This is a venture capital company. The person we talked with Sierra Ventures knew a lot about LED lighting and energy efficiency.

After the meeting we went to Stanford University and walked around. Then we went to an Indian restaurant with our Google Host Craig Cornelius.

After dinner we went back to hotel and I finished my blogs.

That is all for today.

Bryan

Day 8 in Silicon Valley

Hi Everyone,

Today is our eighth day in Silicon Valley. Today it is raining. We went to Monterey Bay Aquarium. On our way to the Aquarium we stopped at a Redwood park and walked the trails.

When we arrived at the Aquarium and ate at Amarin Thai Cuisine restaurant for lunch.

We left the Aquarium at 5 pm. When we got back we ate at a pizza place called Applewood.

That is all for day.

Bryan

Day 7 in Silicon Valley

Hi Everyone,

Today is our seventh day (Sun, January 17) in Silicon Valley and our last day in Fisherman's Wharf. Today is moving day. This morning I went shopping for souvenirs. There were a lot of souvenir shops around our hotel. I ate lunch at a local restaurant next to the hotel. Then we for Menlo Park. Tonight we went to a Turkish restaurant in Menlo Park. I had the Kofte. Which is seasoned lamb and beef mixed served with rice, grilled tomato and Anaheim peppers.

After dinner Aaron, Adam, Jacob, Megan, Kaitlin, Jeni, Brad, Kiflu and I played down and up the river in Brads room. Then I wend to bed.

That is all for today.

Bryan

Sixth day in Silicon Valley

Hi Everyone,

Today is our sixth day in Silicon Valley. We started this morning off with a bike ride. We road bikes from the bike shop across the Golden Gate Bridge and then I made it up the hill on the other side of the bridge to a look out point. We could see Point Bonita Lighthouse from where we stopped. Brad, Adam and Aaron got all the way to Point Bonita.

After biking Brad, Adam, Megan, Kiflu and I ate at In-N-Out Burger. I had a burger and fries. It was very good. After that we went to the hotel for a little while before going to the Alcatraz Night Tour.

Around 3:50 we got to the Alcatraz Night Tour and got to ride on a ferry over to the island. Alcatraz has a lot of very interesting history behind it.

After our trip to Alcatraz we ate at a restaurant called Wipeout. I had canadian bacon pizza.

Well that is all for today,

Bryan

Fifth day in Silicon Valley

Hi everyone,

Today for lunch I ate at Stanley's Steamers. I had a hot dog and it was pretty good.

The first company we visited today was Porter Novelli. This company is a Public Relations firm that provides marketing, public relations, and communication services to companies. The person we meet with from Porter Novelli talked a lot about different technologies they are using in order to help other companies out with their social media. She talked a lot about how important Facebook and twitter are in the business community.

Next we visited Creative Commons. This non-for-profit company is a company that creates a way for digital content to be licensed to particular individuals. It gives you the ability to tell people what they can use your picture for. For example, if someone doesn't want another person using their pictures in order to make money they can set it so that the picture can't be used in a corporate setting. This company is small but it is really growing. It is very interesting what they are doing to help with "grey area" in copying things off the internet.

After the meeting Aaron, Jeni, Jacob and I went shopping in Chinatown and then went out to eat at R & G Lounge. The food was good. I had the Chow Mien.

That is all for today,

Bryan

Fourth day in Silicon Valley

Hi everyone,

Today is our fourth day in Silicon Valley and our first stop today was Netvibes. Chris Damsen of Netvibes talked to us about the company. In essences, Netvibes is a dashboard. For example, iGoogle would be something similar to their product. However, Netvibes allows their users to customize almost their entire user homepage. The user is able to see their Facebook, news, weather, email, twitter, etc. by simply going to one place. They are a pretty established company. Another interesting thing we found out about their widgets was that you could make your own. As long as you knew how to write the code you could write any widget you want. The company started in Paris and does almost all their development in Paris. In order to make money for the product they sell the service and the software to companies. I thought the company was interesting and will probably create an account.

After Netvibes we ate lunch at Taylor's Automatic Refresher. I had the hamburger and it was very good.

After dinner we went to kiva.org. Kiva is a non for profit company that allows people to loan as little as $25 to people that need the money. After a period of time people will receive their money back and they can either choose to keep the money or re-loan it to another loan on the site. I thought the company had a very relaxing atmosphere. The employees were passionate about what they did and they were not worried too much about what they were getting paid. I thought this company was very interesting. I enjoyed hearing about the way the money is used and all obstacles they have to overcome in order to simply loan money to those who need it. From the sounds of it they are a company that does a very good job at keeping track of where all the money goes.

Next, we went shopping at the Ferry Building. Around 6 pm we when to a restaurant called Scoma. I had a squash and crab soup for an appetizer, Swordfish for my main meal and tiramisu for dessert. It was incredible.

Swordfish

Tiramisu

Then we went back to the hotel and finished blogging.

That is all for today.

Bryan

Our Third Day in Silicon Valley

Hi Everyone,

Today we started our day off by going to Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and got to meet with Ann Winblad and Prashant Shah. In this meeting we learned a lot about what a startup company has to go through in order to get funding to continue to develop their product. Ann Winblad and Prashant talked about the steps involved in funding a new company. They have to evaluate the company and make sure it has all the things needed to stand up to competitors and continue to grow and become a successful software company. Ann has been a part of many successful companies including the one our instructor started when he was in college. The main goal of this company is to find the next big, new company. The new ideas that will lead us into tomorrow.

After Hummer Winblad we ate lunch. I had a corn dog at a food stand along the way. Then we were off to the Exploratorium. This was a really fun place. It had a lot of exhibits that you could look at and learn about. Everything from electricity and magnetics to seeing and hearing exhibits. The exhibits were very interactive. I had a lot of fun!

After the Exploratorium we walked back to the hotel. We also took a bus. On our way back to the hotel we stopped and took a picture of some of the people in our group.

After we got back we when to a bistro restaurant called Boudin for dinner. I had 3 mini bistro cheese burgers. They were really good. After dinner we came back to the hotel and caught up on blogs and twitters.

That is all for this evening.

Bryan

Day 2 in San Francisco

Hi all,

Today we started our day off by visiting callspark.com. We spoke with Steve Larsen. This company is a start up company that is still trying to take off. They are off to a good start though. The product they are developing is a service to provide their customer with an easier way to find and call their contacts. The company is trying to integrate Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce, White Pages and LinkedIn in order to more accurately search for the phone number you are trying to find. His main advice was "persistence pays". He also said that to look for employees that will be a one or a two on your scale. One meaning the person is a perfect match for the position and a two means the person would be a good fit if no one else is a number one.

Next we had lunch with Allison from Vark.com. We ate at Suriya Thai Restaurant. I had the Noodles and Broccoli with chicken and a spicy peanut sauce. It was good. Aardvark is the name of the company that is located at vark.com. They are a company that answers your questions. When people sign up for Aardvark they are asked about areas they are know a lot about in order to get a better idea of what questions you would be able to answer. The way the process works is people will enter a question and based on the subject of the question they will send it to a certain person and that person will answer the question. It sounded like the company was starting to take off. She also gave us t-shirts.

After lunch we went shopping for a little while. I went to the Apple Store and Old Navy. Then we had a meeting with Matt Van Horn from Digg.com. Digg.com is a site that rates news articles and the more thumbs up it gets the higher on the page it is. It is place where people can discover and share content and information. Matt's main advice is to be different, stand out and figure out who you want to work for. After you know who you want to work for, see if you have any people that you know that will introduce you to them or if there is someway to make a connect with a person in that company.

Then we went to the SFNewTech. The companies that presented were Apptizer, frog design, RadioWeave, Personal Caregiver, Polka, VeloComputer, and iSpy. What happened was, each of these companies had 5 minutes to talk about their product and after that 5 minutes there was a 5 minute question and answer session. Before the presentation I got to meet many people from different companies. For example I met someone from Ask.com and TripIt. We also got free tacos with admission. It was a very neat event.

Finally we went back to our hotel and a few of us when to In and Out Burger. Then I went to bed.

That is all for today.

Signing off.

Bryan

Our First Day

Today we arrived in San Francisco at Fishermans Wharf.

We ate at Fog Harbor Fish House. I had the Mahi-Mahi (shown above). I also tried squid, salmon stuffed shrimp and crab. Then we went exploring.

Group Picture