Event Specification Guide: Fill & Download for Free

I don’t think this was an intentional reveal. The iPad user guide for iOS 8 seems that an update to the September iBooks was released a day earlier then the event. There is a good chance that approval for the release was based on the focus that it was an iOS 8 guide and not so much an iPad specific guide. I would surmise the party that approved the release did not really know that the new iPads were specified in the guide.Things like this have happened before at Apple, usually with developer materials or software betas.

I took a guided tour of Dachau, outside of Munich, a few years ago. It was overall a very moving and memorable experience.It was more personal than historical, for me. My grandparents are both Holocaust survivors who have spoken extensively about their experience, both to our family and in their communities [1]. As a result, I'd thought and read a lot about concentration camps, the Holocaust, and its aftermath. Seeing an actual camp like the ones where members of my own family were killed became as much about understanding my grandparents and what they went through as it was about understanding World War II.The buildings are more troubling than the outdoors. The buildings are where a lot of the truly unthinkable happened: gas chambers, medical experiments, etc. Dachau does a good job of showing informative signs about some of these events. Specifically, there's a large room where various forms of physical experiments and torture took place. Being inside that sterile, abandoned building, and seeing some of the physical implements used to conduct these experiments, was deeply disturbing. By contrast, once I went outside, it was almost hard for me to remember where I was. It was a beautiful summer day, sun shining, I was standing in a big field, surrounded by old brick buildings, and there were fewer informational signs about the camp. I had to remind myself where I was and to stay mindful.The concentration camp Dachau is very close to the small town of Dachau, and only 10 miles from Munich. It's hard to believe that such atrocities could take place so close to major cities.Images from Holocaust movies kept popping into my head, and made what I was seeing much more real. Most notably, seeing the gas chambers reminded me of one of the most powerful scenes in Life Is Beautiful involving the showers, and really drove home the emotional weight of where I was. I say this sheepishly, as I wish the actual site had provided all the necessary imagery. But movies are powerful and moving in a way impartial museum signs rarely are, so those images help concretize what could otherwise be a very academic experience.My biggest takeaway, and what's stuck with me the most in the years since I went, is the importance of educating younger generations about the Holocaust. Our tour guide asked several questions of our group about the basic facts of the Holocaust, and many people were unable to answer. It was surprising and deeply concerning to me that a group of Americans and Europeans, educated and wealthy enough to vacation in Germany and voluntarily visit a concentration camp, didn't know the basic timeline or players. We can't rely on the families of survivors to carry on the knowledge and lessons of the Holocaust, nor on people traveling to Europe to see the sites firsthand. It made me hope that school curriculums begin teaching this more thoroughly, so it becomes common knowledge amongst educated people around the world.[1] This is my grandfather: 92 Year-old Holocaust survivor receives high school diploma -- Pretty badass, right?

Fly to the Silicon Valley and start meeting people! And don't be shy!I am sure that sounds pretty unreal for someone reading this from abroad. How do you meet people in Silicon Valley? You can't very well come up to strangers on the street, not even on Sand Hill Road, and see if they are angel investors. (Although there are some coffee shops in Palo Alto where you probably could, but that would be weird!) :)Fortunately, you don't have to do that. There is Meetup (www.meetup.com) which is a good place to find meetings on any theme of your choosing. Here are some that I sometimes go to:106 MilesHackers and FoundersSilicon Valley NewTech MeetingStartup Grind Silicon ValleyYou should plan to hit one (or more) events per night during your stay, which is entirely possible, given how many things are going on at the same time. Especially if you get a car and cover San Francisco and the Silicon Valley.A lot of groups host pitching contests or other events specifically designed to draw companies and investors in a particular sector. For instance, fresh from my inbox, The Entrepreneurs' Club (http://www.tecglobal.org/) is hosting a panel of startups discussing disruptive innovation in education on November 1. If your startup is in education, that would be a great place to go (or to present at) to find investors in the space. One way to find out about these events (outside of Meetup) is by signing up for StartupDigest (http://startupdigest.com/). It's free and sends out a weekly report of (some of) the goings on in the Silicon Valley.Once you get on enough mailing lists, you'll be bombarded with invitations to events. There was a week in September when I think there were three mobile app pitch-offs being held by three different groups, all with a slightly different flavor. For someone in the mobile space, it would have been a great time to fly in, present, and fly home having made some interesting new connections.We have seen companies get angel interest and funding from winning startup competitions. And we've seen it be fruitless for others. Ultimately, it's up to the company and its founders to get investors excited about the product. But getting in front of hundreds of people over the course of a week, some of them angel investors, gets you a step closer.Good luck!_________________UPDATE 11/05/2013: I have since published a guide for foreign entrepreneurs on raising capital in the Silicon Valley, which can be found here: https://readymag.com/StartupVoice/Startup/