As a friend put it to me this past week, Blursday Socials essentially democratize the conference party. When I go to conferences, which I assume I will start doing again later this year, I am lucky that I get invited to lots of parties and get to talk to really interesting—and “important”—people. I get to sit at a bar with people like Paul LeBlanc and shoot the breeze. Not everybody is so lucky, which is a loss on all sides. Because a lot of the people on the outside of those conversations are just as interesting and important, if not as famous, as the people on the inside. Blursday Socials change that dynamic. Last week, everybody who came got a chance to hang out and shoot the breeze with Paul LeBlanc. Who, it turns out, is a delightful person to shoot the breeze with.
I’m going to be bringing in more people whose names you know while mixing them in with people whose names you should know but probably don’t. To that end, here’s the latest line-up:
- 4/29, as previously announced, will be Matt Tower, Senior Associate for SEI Ventures. SEI, by the way, is the company that owns Strayer University, Capella University, HBCU Online, and a number of other interesting but lesser known properties. SEI Ventures is their investment arm. Needless to say, he sees the world from an unusual perch. He’s also just a super-smart guy and runs a terrific weekly show on Clubhouse.
- 5/6 will be my dear friend Lucy Appert, NYU’s Director of Educational Technology, Faculty of Arts and Science. She’s also a PhD in English Literature. She puts the “ed” in “EdTech” and the “human” in “humanities.” I’ve known Lucy since we were both involved with Sakai back in the day. And she’s been on the front lines with NYU’s COVID response. We will have lots to talk about.
- 5/13 will be 2U CEO Chip Paucek. When you hear Chip interviewed, he’s the kind of guy who comes across as somebody who would be fun to talk to. As it turns out, he is. Rather than talking about the OPM wars or rehashing the 2U value proposition, we’re going to get to talk to conference-party Chip about conference-party topics of conversation.
I’ve been looking for a unified way for people to see (and register for) every Blursday social. The platform I use, Run the World, doesn’t have anything official to use, but I’ve discovered a back door. If you visit my public profile on the platform, you’ll see links to all of the upcoming Blursday events. You’ll also see links to the past events. If you click on the latter and scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll be able to watch archives of the events.
(Sadly, the intro music apparently doesn’t get recorded, so you miss the whole Tonight Show feel to the intro.)
RSVP to any or all of the above events. Dress code is casual; BYOB.
