VCinJerusalem

They Came for the Gas Masks: Is that a good thing?

The doorbell rings last night...I am home alone with the kids (Haviva was out teaching). Bathing this one, serving dinner to that one, fixing someone's computer...the stuff of everyday life, no different than the father of five children ages 4-14 in hundreds of thousands of homes in the "Western" world. "Please answer the door,"I call out. My 14 year old daughter, Michal, comes to me and says "there is someone from the Ministry of Defense." (this is a free translation of the Hebrew original...) Ministry of Defense? Maybe she didn't understand. I go to the door, and sure enough, there is a someone from the Ministry of Defense, and he explains he is going door-to-door collecting gas masks.

And you know, it took me a few seconds to assimilate what he was saying...for a few seconds there I even forgot that we have gas masks at home, forgot that for weeks at a time, twice in the past 17 years, we lived in real fear of a chemical/biological attack. We created safe rooms in our homes, walked around for weeks with gas masks, practiced putting infants into their special tents...for a few seconds I forgot all that, and just wondered what this guy was talking about. Then it all came back to me...and I saw in my mind exactly where our family's gas masks were "hiding," far from my mind's eye. So I asked the nice Ministry of Defense representative what this was all about--he explained that there is a massive project going on, called "Collecting from the House," which entails collecting all the millions of gas masks distributed to every household in Israel, because, as he explained,they are expired! If there was a chemical attack tomorrow and we tried to use them, they would be useless. Well, for a few seconds there we  would get a laugh at how silly we all look in those things.

So I asked my new friend, who I burdened with our six gas masks (Nachum, our  youngest,  was born after the last distribution), whether this was a good sign or a bad sign. Did this mean there was suddenly new intelligence, prompting the powers that be to refresh our gas masks? Or did it mean the scare is over, and we will all have a little more room in our closets?  No answer from my friend, he is just doing his job, no time to dwell on the bigger issues. Then, get this, he pulls out a PDA with wireless connectivity, and enters in my ID number, and look at that--full details on the military property I was storing in my house, along  with to which family member it was assigned...what a difference from before the Gulf War in 1990, or just a few years ago when America attacked Iraq, and we needed to to central points, fill out forms, wait in lines.

In 2007,in the modern, high-tech, post-post Israel, the Ministry of Defense pays house calls! What service! 

And then tonight I go out to Emek Refaim (few hundred meters from my house), which just a few years ago was rocked with multiple suicide bombings, to take part in a street festival in honor of the holiday of Shavuot. It was packed, wall-to-wall people. Did all of those people change in their gas masks?

Somehow we try and live our lives, not thinking about the gas masks in the closet. And now they are not even in the closet...I hope nothing happens.

No Time for Blogging

Just heading back to Jerusalem from hectic week travelling in the US with, yes, you guessed it, Shimon Constante, CEO of mPortico, as we pull together next round financing and progress on business development front.

Passed through the eye of the storm on Sunday in NY, then straight to Silicon Valley, bouncing around between venture funds, strategic business partners, and some nice running along the water in San Francisco.

Did not have any real focused downtime on trip for formulating blog entry, which is par for the course, these trips are go go go. Thank God took the time to run outside every morning.

Look for me next week back in Jerusalem, as we celebrate Israeli Independence Day.

Shabbat Shalom

It Just Isn't Fair...

OK, so I am 100% opposed to any form of intellectual property piracy for so many reasons, but mainly because it is wrong to do it. That does not mean I do not feel the tension. Especially when some owners of intellectual property still look at the world with 20th century glasses.

Case in point: LOST series from ABC. LOST is a great show, as far as these things go, and my older kids are addicted to it. When the first few seasons came available to rent on DVD they rented them and watched them all straight through...(no commercial breaks on DVD rentals). But the current season is obviously not out yet in DVD. And then I hear from friends in the US of A that ABC hosts LOST for free streaming right from their website...so I go to ABC website, click on watch full show, and get this:

What do I tell my kids now? After all, they all have American passports, we will physically be in America in the Summer...why is ABC blocking Israeli IP addresses??? Well, because they are managing content in a very old fashioned way...with 2 shakes of an IP proxy I can get around this "walled garden" approach of ABC, but I will play along, because that's the way I am. "If" my kids can download it elsewhere, however, not sure what I will tell them. Thanks ABC, for putting my ethics to the test. :-(

Try This!

As a veteran of the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) industry (for more on that, see www.pulver.com), it is not often that I come across what I consider to be an interesting new product or service, but I think the guys at Jaxtr are on to something. While I just started playing with it a few minutes ago, I am impressed enough to post this widget...and see if anyone makes a call. Try it...

Get jaxtr | Login

Take Off the Costume

Yesterday I had the unique opportunity to timeshift and placeshift in the real world. You see, the holiday of Purim was celebrated in most of Israel yesterday (in Jerusalem celebrated today, commemorating the part in the Purim story wherein fighting continued into the fifteenth day of Adar...a lengthier explanation of "Shushan Purim" can be found here). As a Jerusalemite I was not yet celebrating, yet had reasons (see below) to be traveling outside Jerusalem. Even in Jerusalem there was an "off" feeling, as outsiders came into town dressed in their Purim finery (costumes of all kinds, Purim being the time when we try to be who we are not...a day of opposites).

Jerusalem in general feels like Purim, as we have such a wide variety of communities here, many with a unique style of dress....to say the least. Hasidim of all kinds, Christians from all points of the globe (Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, etc etc), Muslim, and fusion -- every day in Jerusalem feels like a dress-up day, everyone in their own costume (mine usually consisting of jeans and a t-shirt...). On my way to bus station to go to Tel Aviv, I saw a group of people walking, looked like usual Ultra Orthodox folks (men dress in black and white), all of I sudden I realized the man's long black coat had colorful polka dots painted on...what a refreshing sight! A bit of color in an otherwise monochrome lifestyle!

I continued on to my meetings in Tel Aviv, sitting on a crowded bus with soldiers armed for battle (soldiers in Israel are required to carry their guns with them at all times, and tend to travel on buses since they have free passes), tourists, Jerusalemites trying to get ahead of themselves and in Purim costume, and a few like me, working, on our way to Tel Aviv for business meetings. I joined Shimy Constante, CEO of mPortico, in a meeting/presentation to a local Israeli venture fund together with a Silicon Valley fund in Israel for a few days. During the meeting we all put on our "costumes." Shimy as start-up CEO, me as strong supporter, other venture guys with their own versions.

Following the meeting, as soon as we got outside, Shimy asked me -- so, what did you think? Did they like it? etc etc. I told Shimy that it seemed there was interest, but obviously no one took out their checkbooks at the meeting.

And then I realized, if I had more guts, especially in honor of the Purim holiday, I should have done the opposite of what we usually do -- I should have asked everybody to step out of costume, and just say what they were thinking, feeling -- no playing the role of a venture capitalist.

But our costumes are an important part of who we are, and how the game is played.

It would be refreshing, however, just like the colorful polka dots on the black coat, once in awhile to go to one of these meetings and declare "Take Off The Costume" -- give instant feedback, decide on the spot, no games. Yeah, would be refreshing, but probably too much to expect on a regular basis. We need our costumes. They define us, comfort us.

Happy [Jerusalem] Purim!!