For venture capitalists, boards seats are like martinis: one is good, and two is better, but three is horrible.  My guest blog post entitled Bored with Board Seats was published earlier today on Forbes.com.

My guest post on Forbes Velocity Blog on Data, The Facebook Nation, And New Opportunities was published today.  In it I talk about how the sophistication in data and computing power available is producing the next generation of technology companies.

Coming soon to a television station near you, the Mint Automatic Floor Cleaner.  It is an exciting time at CMEA portfolio company Evolution Robotics as they have recently launched the first Mint commercials in the Bakersfield and Oakland television markets.  But maybe you’ve already seen the Mint on The Martha Stewart Show or The Rachael Ray Show or in SkyMall.  Mint is designed to clean hard surfaces and uses the advanced NorthStar Navigation system to map floors so it doesn’t miss any spots and knows where it’s been.  It works with popular cleaning cloths such as Swiffer and Pledge. 

Did I mention that the Mint just won the International Design Excellence Award or the Popular Mechanics’ Editor’s Choice Award at CES 2010?  I know it’s just July, but the holidays will be here before we know it.  Click here to reserve your Mint.

My guest blog post for Forbes Velocity was published today.  In it, I write about how neither the Legislative Body or the Executive Branch seem to understand that focusing on making funding more easily available to entrepreneurs will ultimately drive economic growth and job creation.  There just aren’t enough entrepreneurs in D.C.!

For many months now dozens of people have asked me about what’s cooking at Blekko. And for many months all I’ve been able to say is “Blekko is a big, bold, bet in search. It’s in stealth. Stay tuned.”

Well,  today I can finally give them an answer.

And here it is, in video form (thanks Mike Arrington):
Here’s what Blekko’s founders Rich Skrenta and Mike Markson had to say about it:

You can also see what Rich and Mike had to say about Blekko on their respective blogs, here and here.

Finally, here is the original TechCrunch post on Blekko (I’ve included snippets and screenshots below):

“What Makes Blekko Different?

Blekko is a full web search engine, with regular crawls of billions of web pages. But they know that they can’t beat Google at size of index, relevancy and speed right out of the gate. So they’re differentiating themselves in  another way – by giving users tools to do new types of searches that they can’t do elsewhere. And by providing an unprecedented level of access to the algorithms and data that Blekko uses to determine relevancy.

That doesn’t mean Blekko’s relevancy isn’t great. The company says they’re on par with Google and Bing for most queries. But the differentiating feature are the query refinement tools they call Slashtags. These tools, like /news or /date or /amazon or /blogs, or any combination, make it very simple to quickly filter results to what you are looking for.

Users can create their own slashtags based on a group of URLs. I’ve created one that lists all TechCrunch sites to do easy site search. Others have created slashtags for conservative or liberal blogs, top tech sites, etc. If they make those slashtags public, others can use them, too.

The company also lets users search via a variety of APIs. Add /amazon to search on Amazon. Or /twitter to search via the Twitter API. Or just type /whatever.com to search just that domain.”

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This week I wrote a guest post for our portfolio company Jobvite called Jobvite our next CEO of WorkingPoint.  In it I talk about how as we embark on our quest to find a new CEO at WorkingPoint another CMEA portfolio company, we have decided to enter into unchartered territory by using Jobvite’s social recruiting technology.  Read about why we think using our collective personal networks may actually be the best way to find the next Aaron Patzer or Mark Zuckerberg to run your company.  Oh, and did I mention there is a finders fee involved?

I wrote a guest blog for Forbes Velocity earlier this week about Secretary Steven Chu and the effect he is having on energy innovation, entrepreneurs and the relevance of the Department of Energy in general.  The post is entitled, Here’s to Secretary Chu and the End of Energy’s Dark Ages.  Enjoy the read!

Earlier today, my guest blog post was published on Forbes Velocity Blog.  I write about the alternative energy industry being the latest in a series of waves of innovation in the Valley and how this new innovation will affect job creation.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments on this subject.  You can read the entire post on Forbes.com.

I contributed a guest post for the Forbes Velocity Blog, which was published today, entitled Virtual R&D:  Drug Development in the New Millennium.  In it I write about the changing venture-capital backed biotechnology industry and the growing interest in funding “projects” rather than companies.

My guest post blog for Forbes.com was published today:  Looking Beyond the Oil Spill.  As heartbreaking as the unfolding disaster in the Gulf is, all will not be in vain if this event drives home the true cost of our dependence on fossil fuels, and we take advantage of this opportunity to pass a Clean Energy Bill that lays the foundation for a renewable energy future by finally putting a price on carbon.