Jan 16th was a big day for us. We presented @ the Canadian Financing Forum’s Vancouver event and I was shocked to be voted the winner of the “Best Early-Stage” award by the venture capitalists, angels, and tech luminaries in attendance. I believe the field was about 15 companies deep, and to be honest I was shocked (but grateful) to receive this acknowledgment of all of our hard effort. In receiving this conveniently-sized (it fits in your back pocket, honest!) award I was greeted by BC Minister of Economic Development Colin Hansen, whom I am sure was so humbled by the experience of meeting such an unwashed tech entrepreneur as myself that he’s still talking about it.

By any convention this blog post should include a photo of said award and/or yours truly accepting said award with the aforementioned dignitary, however I have been so busy fielding inquiries and interviews resulting from the attention that I have not had time to take a photo of it. I do promise a photo of the trophy for you kids keeping score at home when I get back to the office next week, and if anyone of the thousands of you taking camera-phone pictures of our momentous handshake would send me a copy, that would make my mom very very happy. In the meantime I have used a photo of Cam Ward hoisting the Stanley Cup (which is almost as nice) after winning it with the Hurricanes in 2006.

While I was sipping highballs and feasting on chicken skewers with fellow entrepreneurs and investors at the Waterfront Hotel, the team at Something Simpler were busting it trying to secure the release of pulse, which if you haven’t heard yet is one of the coolest applications to hit Facebook since “Zombie[s] Killer” (well OK, not a real app, but tell me you’re not wishing for it!).

We’ll talk about Pulse, and why it’s an important bellwether of products to come, later. I promise.