This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

I recently visited a friend at her offices in Union Square. As she gave me the grand tour, she pointed at a room: "That used to be Andy Warhol's office." I paused. THE Andy Warhol? Yup! Apparently the building became home to Warhol's Factory back in 1973. It struck me that in today's world of Twitter and Instagram and fans and followers and micro-celebrities, Warhol's "15 minutes of fame" quote had finally come true.

Speaking of factories, as I made my way out of the building I ran into one-man idea factory Seth Godin and his son Alex. Seth had recently come out with a new book (via Kickstarter),  The Icarus Deception, which I was eager to sink my teeth into, and Seth was excited about an event I'm co-organizing next month: The Big Apple Smackdown a.k.a. Silicon Alley's First Annual Ping Pong Tournament! FYI, I'm raffling off 5 FREE Passes to this invite-only event. So apply today and keep your fingers crossed! ;)

Applications for the Fall 2013 Masters of Engineering program at Cornell NYC Tech are now being accepted! Deadline is March 15. Questions? Email admissions@tech.cornell.edu.

The deadline is bearing down on us for Competition THRIVE, which NYC EDC (with Baruch College) created to seek innovative strategies for helping immigrant entrepreneurs succeed. Five semi-finalists get $25,000 and the grand prize winner gets $100,000. Apply by this Thursday, March 7.

Congrats to Raspberry Pi on their first birthday! With over a million Pis sold, this is one New York startup I'm very excited about. It feels like New York City is very much at the center of the Maker Movement, with Kickstarter, Quirky, MakerBot, BugLabs, Etsy and Shapeways all here right in our backyard.

SPLAAATTT!!! That's the sound of my Google Calendar finally buckling under the weight of all my SXSW RSVPs, now at a mind-numbing 330 parties! Good God. What kind of monster have we created?! FYI, I have two FREE passes to Rovio's SXSW BBQ & Pool Party! Each pass is good for 1 person + 1 guest. Yes, the Mighty Eagle will be there.

In other SXSW news: My friend Irina will be doing TechCab Confessions at SXSW, giving attendees a free ride in exchange for their video confession of a technological sin. We're once again partnering with the good folks at Shoutem to create the Austin Party Guide app, so make sure to download it. And finally, to get everyone in the mood, my buddy Brian Shields (IncubateNYC) has created this mixtape with DJ B-Hen. 

If you're not going to SXSW, there are still plenty of events happening in New York City including The 5th Annual NxNYC, The Anti-SXSW and South by Southside.

Mark your calendars, because coming up next month, on April 25, is what's shaping up to be the lagest tech startup event in the world--AND it's free. I give you: New York Tech Day!

Finally, check out Fred Wilson interviewing Jack Dorsey at the NYU Entrepreneurship Festival last week. These are two guys at the top of their game. Jack talks about his favorite book (Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea), his admiration for Bieber, his love of sailing, his short-lived career as a tailor, why he chose Fred as investor, his dreadlocks-and-nose-ring days and more.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

BRITE 2013 Conference
Speakers include Shiv Singh (PepsiCo), Kaaren Hanson (Intuit), Liz Schimel (Meredith), Charles Duhigg (New York Times), Kerry Trainor (Vimeo), Michael Hagan (LevelUp) and others.
Monday (Mar. 4), 8 a.m. @ Columbia University Lerner Hall, 2920 Broadway

Founders@Fail: How To Build A Community
With Mark Peter Davis (founder, Kohort), Amanda Hesser (founder, Food52), Kathryn Minshew (founder, The Muse) and Jen Rubio (head of social, Warby Parker)
Monday (Mar. 4), 6:30 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Art and Technology: Wendi Murdoch and Jerry Yang
Monday (Mar. 4), 6:30 p.m. @ Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue

The Future of Food - A talk at the Museum of Natural History
Join plant geneticist Paul Gepts, economic journalist Fred Kaufman, ethicist Paul Root Wolpe, and intellectual property lawyer Rochelle Dreyfuss for an intellectual feast about the future of food.
Tuesday (Mar. 5), 6:30 p.m. @ American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 77th Street

Crowdfunding Cleaner Waterways With +POOL
A discussion on how design can transform cities and improve the environment. With the founders of +POOL (a Kickstarter project that raised $40,000 to design a floating swimming pool in the East River that'd filter 500,000 gallons of water every day)
Tuesday (Mar. 5), 6:30 p.m. @ Huge Brooklyn, 45 Main Street, 2nd Fl.

Tech Tuesday
The Return of Tech Tuesday with GrandLife and Fueled: Pre-SXSW Edition
Tuesday (Mar. 5), 7 p.m. @ Tribeca Grand Hotel, 2 6th Avenue

BUZZtheBar Launch Party! (Free with discount code GARYSGUIDE)
Classy 1940s meets modern-style boozing, games, giveaways, and just a darn good time! Free with discount code GARYSGUIDE.
Tuesday (Mar. 5), 8 p.m. @ Hotel Chantelle, 92 Ludlow St

March NY FinTech Startups Demo Day!
Featuring EquaMetrics, Vestorly, TradeEmbark and more.
Wednesday (Mar. 6), 6:30 p.m. @ Dechert, 1095 6th Avenue, 28th Fl.

Inaugural Latino Tech Meetup
Wednesday (Mar. 6), 7 p.m. @ ThoughtWorks, 99 Madison Avenue, 15th Fl.

Accelerating Startups - Introduction to DreamIt NYC
Learn about DreamIt NYC Summer 2013 program. With Mark Wachen (managing director, DreamIt NYC).
Thursday (Mar. 7), 12 p.m. @ NYU-Poly DUMBO Incubator, 20 Jay Street, Ste 312, Brooklyn

The Future of Education #2: Innovation in K-12 Learning
With Andrea Coleman (CEO, Office of Innovation at NYC Dept. of Education), Ivan Cestero (Avenues: The World School), Leigh Ann Sudol-DeLyser (Academy for Software Engineering: AFSE NYC) and Lyel Resner (NYU Stern & Startup Box: South Bronx)
Thursday (Mar. 7), 7 p.m. @ Avenues: The World School, 259 10th Avenue

Women 2.0 Founder Friday NY
Happy International Women's Day! Come celebrate.
Friday (Mar. 8), 6 p.m. @ Google NYC, 111 8th Avenue

NY Gaming Meetup and Games.com Hackathon
To celebrate the launch of the new Games.com platform.
Saturday (Mar. 9), 1 p.m. @ AOL Ventures, 770 Broadway, 6th Fl.

Tech@NYU DemoDays
Students across NYC take the stage to showcase what they've been working on!
Saturday (Mar. 9), 3 p.m. @ eBay HQ NYC, 625 6th Avenue, 3rd Fl.

More events on the horizon...
NYTECH Presents: Legal Essentials for Startups - Intellectual Property Protection on Mar 11 @ Anchin
NY Enterprise Tech Meetup on Mar 12 @ Cooley
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 56 on Mar 13 @ NYU Stern School of Business
Unleash the Beast: How to Hack a Hackathon Save the World and Make Your Parents Proud on Mar 14 @ Internet Media Labs
Investor Feedback Forum on Mar 14 @ Microsoft
The Future of 3D Manufacturing - Brooklyn Style on Mar 18 @ Brooklyn Law School - Moot Court Room
March 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Mar 19 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Mobile UX Design Four-Part Series: Theory, Science, Optimization & Design on Mar 20 @ Frankfurt Kurnit
Design for Manufacturing Summit #3 on Mar 21 @ Dumbo Spot
Big Apple Smackdown: Silicon Alleys 1st Annual Ping-Pong Tournament! on Apr 14 @ SPiN New York
NY Tech Day on Apr 25 @ Pier 92

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

Utopia? (Photo: Office Snapshots)

The Roosevelt Island campus is still in progress, but Cornell NYC Tech officially had its first day of classes yesterday at 20,000 feet of donated space at Google's Chelsea HQ. Oh you fancy huh? [New York Times]

Now you can apply for a job at Google with just one click--as long as you have an actually updated and functional Google+ profile. So... nevermind. [The Next Web]

People are still getting fired for their social media presences so maybe keep that in mind next time you comment on a BuzzFeed article, Curtis Dee, manager at the Olive Garden. [New York Times]

How does Google keep its employees so happy? Its HR team, called People operations, uses data and social scientists to figure out which perks employees respond to the best. Yeah? Well... at Betabeat we have free coffee... [Slate]

You can no longer purchase gun-related promotions on Groupon, at least for now. [Business Insider]

(Photo: CornellNYC Tech)

Cornell NYC Tech, the Ivy League school's Technion assisted expansion onto Roosevelt Island, just got a huge PR boost from three big names. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Qualcomm Founder Irwin Jacobs, and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt have all been tapped to be advisors to the new tech campus.

Now they're like the super-important ultra-rich white guy Avengers of Cornell. 

This is, of course, not the first time that the Mayor and Mr. Schmidt have been involved with Cornell NYC Tech. Mayor Bloomberg has participated in pretty much every major announcement about the campus, including personally revealing the appointment of Cornell NYC's first dean at Tumblr HQ.. Although Mr. Schmidt hasn't publicly been associated with the campus, Google has gifted the campus 22,000 square feet of office space for the next five years.

In addition to being the founder of Qualcomm, Mr. Jacobs was an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT from 1959 to 1966 and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at University of California, San Diego from 1966 to 1972. Besides the fact that he's an incredible entrepreneur, it's clear that the guy knows some stuff about tech education.

In a press release sent to Betabeat, the three titans shared their thoughts on officially becoming a part of this new venture. Some shared more thoughts than others. A little terse there, Mr. Schmidt:

“New York City’s growing tech industry is about to be infused with new talent, thanks to the historic investments made by the City and Cornell for the new campus on Roosevelt Island,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Ensuring that the new campus is connected in the right way to the thriving entrepreneurial sector is important to delivering on the promise of economic growth that is at the center of this project. I look forward to advising the university leadership on how we can achieve these goals.”

"Throughout my career as an educator and as founder of two companies based on innovation, I have experienced great satisfaction in developing unique products and growing large markets by exploiting rapid advances in applied science and engineering," said Irwin Jacobs.  "I am excited by this opportunity to work with Mayor Bloomberg and Eric Schmidt in guiding Cornell NYC Tech and the Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute through a rapid transition from startup to major player in applied science education and the formation of impactful new companies. Both Cornell, where I received an excellent undergraduate engineering education, and Technion, which has trained many of the engineers working at Qualcomm Israel in Haifa, have the energy and experience to surpass our great expectations."

“I am pleased to join the steering committee for Cornell NYC Tech as they build their presence in New York City,” said Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. “This campus is an important step forward for the development of the city’s tech sector and its continued economic growth.”

The press release gives a hazy description of what the three will actually be doing for the new graduate program. It says that they "will provide advice to tech campus leadership on the educational, research, economic development and community engagement functions of the campus, helping to promote new national and international models connecting academia and industry."

We doubt that any of these three guys will be picking up some chalk to teach a class any time soon, but at least their presence gives promise that this campus will be pretty star-studded.

Artist's rendering. (Image: Cornell University)

The starchitect-designed Roosevelt Island campus won't be ready 'til sometime in 2017, but that doesn't mean the embryonic staff of Cornell NYC Tech plans to sit around for the next half decade, twiddling their thumbs. A rolling stone gathers no moss! Time and tide wait for no man! Haven't you heard there's a tech talent crisis on?

Today Cornell University (with Mayor Bloomberg, naturally) announced that applications are now being accepted for the "beta class" of the school's one-year Master of Engineering in computer science program. Classes commence in January 2013, in space borrowed from Google. So if you've been kicking the tires on a graduate degree, today could very well be your moment of glory. 

Mayor Bloomberg got a little cliche in his excitement:

“There’s simply no better place to further your education and launch your career than New York City. Getting in won’t be easy, but if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”

God willing, this was followed by a rousing display of jazz hands.

However, before you say "what the hell" and submit some half-assed, tossed-off paperwork, know that Cornell has no intention of priming the pump with lax admission standards. The announcement takes pains to point out that this first class will be "small and highly selective." And a gander at the information for potential applicants suggest that a bit of Code Academy and a couple of courses at General Assembly probably aren't going to cut it:

Successful applicants to Cornell NYC Tech should have excellent academic credentials and strong entrepreneurial interests, leadership skills and a passion for community engagement.  A bachelor’s degree (BA, BS, BE) in computer science or a related technical field is required except in exceptional cases.  All applicants, regardless of their undergraduate degree, should have taken courses on programming, discrete structures, architecture and operating systems.

And judging from the remarks of Daniel Huttenlocher, Dean of the tech campus, the expectations don't stop there:

“Candidates for the beta class must be future tech leaders, with not only the highest academic credentials but also strong entrepreneurial interests, leadership skills and a passion for community engagement.”

Applications are due October 1, so anyone who wants in better start frantically emailing potential recommenders right this minute.