Ted Pattison was one of the highest rated speakers at the VSLive's that I used to help plan back in the 1990s. Nice to see that he's moved his work to the Web with a new Office 2007 show on Channel 9 — new screencasts will be released soon, most of which are centered on Office 2007.

When I was in Montana I kept hearing about RightNow. Everyone there is proud of the company and its success, particularly at the TechRanch where I had lunch on Thursday. Now I see Tom Foremski writing about Greg Gianforte, RightNow's CEO, and his new book. Added to my reading list.

I'd love to meet Greg too. Sounds like a real interesting guy. It's hard enough to make a successful startup happen in Silicon Valley where there's lots of entrepreneurial support around (and a deep geek culture) but it's gotta be 10x harder to make happen in Montana (fewer people live in the entire state than live in San Jose, for instance).

You'll be hearing a lot more about RightNow Technologies, I predict.

I saw a good example of why I knew I was in Silicon Valley this weekend. This car, in front of me, had a bumper sticker that said, simply:

There's no place like 127.0.0.1

What's worse, is I knew just what it meant. 🙂

I'm still trying to figure out, though, why a Gnome was in Montana. Maybe they'll come to Gnomedex? (This was shot on a car outside the hospital in Billings, MT, where my mom was staying).