As you probably know, I'll be headed to the Next Web Conference in Amsterdam in two weeks to speak about the future of web. And no, I do not know what on earth I'll be talking about. If you have any ideas, please email me!

I know that I promised to cut back on my conference going, but I figured that I'd get to visit the Netherlands for my first time, hang out with friends I met at Harvard, and learn how to speak in front of 750 people. It's over my spring break, so no class cutting required!

Anyhow, if you feel like dragging yourself out to Amsterdam to learn about the future of web and network with cool people like Kevin Rose, Robert Scoble, Leah Culver, and ME, then totally sign up!

See you there!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. She's totally overrated and you all know it.

I try not to splurge, but sometimes I have no choice! Take for example SxSW: You guys convinced me to go to the South by Southwest Conference, so I'm going. Few issues:

1) The only flight out that worked for me cost $620. It was only $100 for an upgrade to first class, so I bought it. Some call it splurging but I call it well deserved.

2) Every half decent hotel in Austin is completely booked. What can I say, the only so-so hotel I found was this place called the Four Seasons. Hopefully I'll find myself a successful, sexy, (wealthy) business man while I'm there? I'll dream on.

3) I had to upload a picture of my face to South by Southwest's website in order to claim my badge. I don't have many photos of me on the internet, but I figured I'll show you guys what I have:

Fugley or what? Whatever, it's better than my driver's license photo. Funny enough, this is the first real photo I've shown to you publicly via my blog.

I'll promise to take lots and lots of pictures for you guys! I'll be lonely, so please shower me with visits.

PS - I'm underage so I can't check into the hotel. Their stupid company policy is that I have to be at least 19 years old. Any of you want to help me? I'm offering a reward!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star. (and traveling to random cities and checking into hotels while being underage)

Ok... fine.. I'll admit it: Very frequently, I write a blog post about something that I dislike or expect to dislike. Several days later, I would then write about the same topic and have a much more positive opinion. Harvard Model United Nations just so happens to be one of these things.

After all, I've been to over 30 conferences now. I've only paid for two of them. Therefore, who could blame me for having such high expectations on what is a good conference versus a bad conference? Of all the events I've been to this year, I'll probably place Harvard Model United Nations in my top 5 list for all conferences I've been to. Impressive!

The first question is, what makes an event better than the others? The speakers, the topics, the food, the atmosphere? Wrong! The quality of the attendees takes precedence over everything. If there are good speakers, you could probably read their interviews on the interwebs. If there are amazing topics at the conference, I'm sure that any average joe could probably find it in the local book store. But people are different - in order to make lasting connections/friendships or whatever you'd like to call them, you must physically be present at the event.

Next, what is considered to be a high-caliber conference attendee? You could look at this from many different perspectives. Firstly, no sales people, and absolutely none of those silly network marketers! If you're paying hundreds/thousands of dollars to go to a conference, (I'm not one of them!) then you probably expect the sales people to be completely rid of. A good conference attendee may not necessarily be a wealthy celebrity. In fact, these people may be so popular that they'll want nothing to do with you. That's why it helps to have invite-only events. In the example of Harvard Model United Nations, only undergrads from colleges came. There was no application from attendees, but the expectations of a "Harvard" conference weeded out the lazy kids who didn't really care about debating and negotiating on world issues. As you may have read, I recently got accepted into TED - often described as a "group of remarkable people that gather to exchange ideas of incalculable value". The incredible value from this conference comes from the fact that most TEDsters are of such a high-caliber. This is the precise reason why invite-only groups are of such high value. Events such as TED don't only want smart people - they want attendees who are open to helping others with their interests and aspirations. And at the Harvard Model United Nations, there was no option to sit passively in the back. Sure, many people did it, but plenty more motivated students sat in the front and played an active role in the committee sessions.

Picture of me and my fellow "early-college" classmates at Harvard Model U.N. I'm the Asian down below if you couldn't guess that much.

Conferences need to manage the work-play relationship. For example, having too many workshops and/or keynote speakers can be boring! When I first wrote about the Harvard Model United Nation Conference, I mentioned how I saw plenty of people falling asleep at the opening ceremony. The basic idea is simple: bring in a charismatic keynote speaker or don't bring one at all! My opinions are controversial, but I hold my belief that a boring keynote speaker will do nothing but help set a *boring* attitude to the rest of the conference. This means that the conference had a rocky start, but quickly picked up pace when the attendees were thrown into action. After the committee sessions ended, the conference organizers threw cocktail parties, delegate dances, and more! Of course, the attendees threw their own private parties that nobody can know about. Whoops.

Overall, it was an amazing experience. Great people, great work-play balance, and all of the other good things that go along with having a grade A event. (minus the super boring keynote speaker) Don't be misled: Sure, this was a kiddie conference and I'm still one of them, but it seems essential that any good event must bring in quality people who are engaged in both learning and helping fellow attendees. Harvard Model United Nations, TED, and any "un-conference" are particular good at achieving this.

Plenty more to come! I can't wait to report on Northern Voice 2008.

PS - I wore formal attire throughout the conference. First time ever. Now THATs impressive!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star.

This past month, I've been getting wayy too many emails from startup founders asking me to write about them. The plain and generic emails are quickly marked as spam.

Other startup founders aren't as dumb. They'll write me a personal note on top then copy and paste their website description right below. Here's a template you can use:

Hi Jessica!
How's it going? I LOVE your blog, I read it all the time! I mean it, like seriously.

Oh, by the way, I have a startup called ____ that you should totally blog about. Pretty please?

[ Insert generic description of your startup here. Make it super long and complicated sounding so that bloggers like Jessica can read right over it]

Oh, one more thing... I'm looking for funding. I don't have a co-founder, and I don't have any startup experience, and I want some money from you.

And thanks for being so awesome!

Sincerely,
Joe Bob

And for those who write the semi-personalized emails, good job! I'll probably read it. Fan mail helps satisfy my enlarged teenage ego. I've been getting too many emails to possibly reply to all of them, but as long as you show some effort in writing to me, I'll definitely read it. If you manage to get a reply from me or a google-talk invitation from me, that means I like what I'm reading.

For example, the guys from IntenseDebate sent a few emails (and a few of my other readers commented on it) and I FINALLY decided to get an account. Their emails followed the basic template above, but without the lame, suck-up, genericness that I very often read. I didn't contact them until after receiving three emails from them, and I really respect persistence.

On another note, you kiddies have been asking me if I'm investing into startups. My answer? Well... I guess I can, but I'm yet to find any startup besides my own that I'd be willing to pop money into. I like the idea of having a co-founder, I like startups in the consumer internet space, and I like startups in the San Francisco Bay Area.

But come on, why would you want a pitiful 17 year old like me to invest into your company? Beats me.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor.