"Bad management is cancer. Bad managers tend to promote other bad managers for similar skills: brown-nosing and covering their asses. The best, most competent managers generally get held down at the bottom level (managers who have line employees as direct reports); the director level is usually the glass ceiling for good managers in a company infected by bad management."

--Valleywag commentator BartKela, commenting on a post about Yahoo! staffers departing.

Reading this this am just made me get that big smile--Christine is so smart, and so shrewed--and First Round is a great team--this is wonderful news--and smart hiring on Josh's part, IMHO:

" Big personal announcement today! I'm officially joining First Round Capital. (Thanks very much to Josh for his warm welcome.) I'll be working closely with Rob Hayes in the San Francisco office."

Way to go, folks. Want to show you all what we're working on at Peoples Software.

So I am at the United RedCarpet Club in Chicago, waiting for a flight to Denver after lots of delays from TVC.. Got smart and used miles for a daypass, so am nibbling cheese and using free wifi for a couple hours.

My United miles, for the most part, are left over from the years I spent travelling cross country for AOL and as a consultant; during the time I spent at Yahoo, I travelled little (that was the idea).

However, I know I am going to be travelling regularly this year--both for Peoples Software and for the work I am doing for the Knight News Challenge. So--

• Does anyone have an airport club they prefer?
•  Day pass vs. membership for a moderate traveller?
• Other thoughts on success at the road warrior thing circa 2008, layover version?

Thanks, lazyweb!

From around the twittersphere, blogosphere, etc  this weekend:

Loren Feldman: "People like the puppet more than you because he is more real than you are. More honest than you are, smarter than you are. More human than you are. People want the Shel puppet to win. The same can't be said for you my friend."

Dave Winer: "They let Shel Israel off the hook. He gets his name back, the puppet is retired. The mock trial they were planning for the TechCrunch summer party, that I learned of this morning, is cancelled."

Dave Winer: "All I could think about is how mean this community had become."

Susan sez: Mean, indeed.

So, this is the last night in Michigan, heading back to Boulder tomorrow.  It's been a interesting two  weeks--I spent more than hald of it working, mostly from a little cafe and on stolen, faint wi-fi on the porch of the cottage, the rest of the time trying to have the vacation we had so long planned.

Thanks go to the team at PSCO for their support through all this--and the work they've done so well--as well as to A, who was supportive of turning time off into remote work. In many ways, choosing to work remotely during a summer program this intense seemed like madness. On the other hand, as someone whose been around dot com frenzy a number of times, I knew this stint of time would not be a make or break for our success if we all agreed to it and handled it well.

Or, to be more blunt, what I really mean is:

• In some ways it was audacious to leave the team at this moment.
• But not going away would have meant canceling the whole trip.
•  I've made those kinds of personal sacrifices before and they helped scuttle an important relationship..and turned out not to be as make or break as I'd thought.
• So this time I wanted to balance the work commitment and the family commitment
• And I think I did.

So now I've had this great trip, I've observed a few things:

• I am both compulsively connected to the net and an obsessive worker
• I have to have vacations where I balance work and fun or there are no vacations (this may be sad but true right now)
• Technology makes it easy to be this way now, hallelujah!

Lots more posting to come as I get back to a decent net connection.

My Blackberry is currently non-operative; I managed to dump it in the Crystal River and am now waiting to see if it works any better (like, at all), after it dries out.

So, if you were going to call me--don't.

Thirty days into the new company and TechStars.
Details here.

So I haven't posted here for 2 days. I want to say it's because I've been on vacation, but the realtty is that I haven't posted because I've been so busy balancing work with being on vacation.
If you look at this picture of the overlook for the great sand dunes on Lake Michigan, what you won't see is that my friends and family all went up ahead, and I did two calls with one of my c-founders and then with a TechStars mentor, asking questions and making plans for next week. (And then there was the morning on the machine in the wi-fi coffee shop, and the daily conference call with the team, and the marketing and distribution planning, and....)

Geeze!

Are you someone passionate about social media--and an online marketing and/or relationship management person? 
The Knight Foundation is looking for someone to help the team (which includes me and some very cool Knight staffers) manage and evangelize the upcoming series of grants, which start with new proposals (which means starting with promoting that we need and want proposals).

Here's the job description:

For the 2009 round of the Knight News Challenge, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is looking to contract with a highly networked Web 2.0 marketing and account management freelancer to:

• Manage programs designed to increase the visibility for the Knight News Challenge,
• Traffic, coordinate, and measure deliverables for third party relationships that will help build on the established audiences (journalists and bloggers) and increase the number of high-quality applications from the following "growth area target groups"
• Run email and blogging marketing and outreach campaigns
• Assist in event planning for town halls and awards programs
• Support community growth

Scope:

• 25 hours per week for $30 / hr
• On monthly basis, from July 1 -September 30, 2008
• Contract-basis only. This is not an employed position.

Profile:

The ideal candidate will be able to:

• Understand Web 2.0 and have relationships in the community to draw on
• Take direction to organize stakeholders (Knight staff, grantees, KNC winners, etc) to carry out email campaigns promoting the KNC
• Manage email campaigns, media partnerships and online marketing for the KNC.
• Support engaging the Web 2.0 community in innovative ways, through meet-ups and other events and documenting results
• Work with Knight Foundation's Program Manager, Program Association and online community manager to deliver on goals
• Manage data and analytics for marketing and PR campaigns and report on effectiveness.

Goals:

The marketing goals for the 2009 Knight News Challenge:

• Receive a higher percentage of Knight News Challenge applications from:
  • Young people (<26)
  • Non-traditional journalists
  • Non-students
  • Web 2.0 and social media developers and strategists, including those working with new platforms and mobile platforms
• Generate 3,000+ high quality applications
• Have at least 500 applicants from the "growth area target groups"

nterested?

Please contact Marc Fest,
href="mailto:knc-marketing@abcdelta.com">knc-marketing@abcdelta.com, with your resume and proposal.

About the Knight News Challenge

The Knight News Challenge (KNC) funds ideas that use digital media to deliver news and information to geographically defined communities. The 2007 Knight News Challenge attracted 1,600 applicants. The 2008 contest drew more than 3,000, with a significant increase in the percentage of young and non-US participants. For more visit www.newschallenge.org

About Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. Knight Foundation focuses on ideas and projects that create transformational change. To learn more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

On "vacation", working remotely, preparing for BlogHer and supporting Knight News Challenge.
Great and terrible.

(On the other hand, it is not 102 degrees here,)