Eric Norlin's Weblog: cracking the "inner circle"

March 30, 2004

cracking the "inner circle"

we've been joking lately that the technology (software) industry really only has 75 leaders, they just continually recycle in and out of successful and failed companies.

With that thought in mind, I was pondering how it was that I ended up knowing the list of folks that I know (I certainly don't mean that to sound arrogant -- i was just thinking about *how* I came to know them).

that story goes something like this:

Way back in 1999, I was working in financial services. I bought this business book called, "The Cluetrain Manifesto" (whose authors are now familiar to you all, i'm sure). I was sitting in a bar, reading this amazing book, thinking, "who are these fucking madmen?" (little did i know that Chris was really the madman ;-)

When I read the bios I saw that Chris Locke lived in Boulder (i'm in denver) and - sure enough - there was an email address. So I dropped him an email saying we should have coffee. He responded with a "yeah, we should."

That meeting never came together, so i dropped him a second email. No response.

So, I dropped him a third email. No response.

So, I dropped him a fourth email -- but this time my email went something like, "Look, just because you're a bestselling business author, that doesn't mean you get to be the kind of asshole that doesn't respond to friendly emails." (it was back before spam)

5 minutes inside of sending that email, my phone rang. It was Chris Locke apologizing and inviting me to his house for coffee and cigarettes.

We hit it off immediately - laughing our asses off about just about everything under the sun -- and the next thing i know he made me a job offer: to be managing editor of a site he was working on for Net Perceptions -- personalization.com.

The VP of Marketing at Net Perceptions was a guy named Steve Larsen. Steve intro'd me to Esther Dyson, Ann Winblad, John Hagel, Martha Rogers, Don Peppers, etc. Chris intro'd me to Doc Searls and David Weinberger....and the circle started expanding. A couple of years went by -- and i kept meeting people (through email or otherwise). Then one day, Doc emailed me and told me to have lunch with this guy in Denver -- a guy named Andre Durand.

That was January 19th 2002 - and Andre had, just 18 days earlier, started his newest company - Ping Identity Corporation. Now, 2 years later, I find myself working at Ping and calling a lot of these people friends. And how did it all start?

I called Chris Locke an Asshole. That's how.

03:29 PM | Permalink

Eric Norlin's Weblog

Recent Posts

Archives

Blogroll

Important Links

March 30, 2004

cracking the "inner circle"

Comments