Rose: “Did you seek/get venture funding?”
Arrington: “You know, I’m not going to answer that question…I don’t want to answer that question”

Sam Altman from Loopt

“Loop transforms your mobile phone into a social compass to discover and navigate the world around you.  Use loopt to see who’s around, what to do, and where to go.”

There are 65,000 iphone apps!?!?

“The mobile phone will be more revolutionary than the PC was”

Chris Anderson from Wired

Initial Impressions:

The Wayzata Ballroom is absolutely beautiful & they’ve done it right: plenty of good food & drink

This is a great promotional tool for Reside, I think any agency should do what they can to throw an informational/educational event.  Bring people together around your brand- it’s great for spreading brand awareness within the local market.  This will surely be enlightening as I’ve been meaning to dig into the cloud more…GigaOm has a ton of serious cloud content.

8:39 – here we go!

Matt Meentz opens with his some stories on mystarbucksidea.com, the obama transition team site (change.gov/citizenbriefingbook)

Over to George Reese: founder of Valtira & enStratus.

Cloud computing: 42b market by 2012 according to IDC; Merril says 160b market.

What is cloud computing?

virtual servers, think dell & sisco

the service is accessible via web browser or network API

requires zero cap exp & is pay as you go

Implications:

Empower access to tech to those in need without the know how thus increasing innovation & freedom/flexibility to make mistakes, frees up cap for other needs.

Layers of the cloud: Saas (software as a service) is on paas (platform as a service) is on infrastructure as a service (Iaas)

next speaker: Eric Scheel, Reside Chief Technical Architect

“conversations are going to occur whether you like it or not, so? do you want to be a part of it?” old quote but worth hearing again and again and again…not enough orgs are listening.

More bullets and examples of embracing social media…heard all this a million times before…can we move on already?  It would be refreshing to experience a presentation on “overcoming the psychological barriers to social media”.

In my opinion, a lot of orgs/marketers need some basic education on what the fundamental power shift from producer to consumer means:  why they must listen, how to be humble, and when /where to interact with their audience. If they cannot wrap their heads around the big picture then no amount of social media will help anything their au their audience.  For example, an friend of mine is closely involved with a social media project within a major fortune 500 co.  He recently described his job as merely being a corporate psychologist as he’s hand holding executives 2 decades older than him: bogged down with inter-office politics, overcoming fear, and fighting ego.

Thanks to Reside for making this a reality!

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/

Project Title: 40 Ventures- a “seed fund & venture development enterprise”

Organizers: Marti Nyman & John Montague

Strategy: 5 companies per year are taken in on full time basis to an environment known as “the facility”.  Mentorships ensue with multi-party hands on development aimed at prepping the startup for first round VC/Angel 12 months forward. “The facility” and related resources will be based out of Minneapolis and application process begins fall ‘09 and the program is set to kick off Jan 1 2010.  According to Mr. Nyman, the fund target is 20 million over 8 years, intending to to inject 40 different ventures with initial seed capital in the 100-200k range.  Percentage of equity will be negotiable and shares issed are in fact, founders shares.

Inv Paramaters: light orgs; not working with med device, not looking for long regulatory approval cycle, saas (consumer, enterprise, commercial), social media, digital media, online retail, mobility, computing simplification, etc.

Notes: Startups will spend a longer time “in facility” than comparable models, ie- techstars,y combinator.

Need: Right team,  clarity of idea, viability of idea, reality of demand, clear understanding of how to go to market, capital efficiency model.

i

Tissues

Anyways, we’ve got Michael Lebowitz (@bigspaceship) from Brooklyn NY here talking about  advertising (yawn) in a post advertising world.

Ok, so mass marketing is dead.  Next.

• value exchange
• earn attention-yes, it isn’t given
• “if you talked to people the way that advertising does they’d punch you in the face.” -Hugh Macleod
• fun begets passion.passion begets quality. Nice!

Ok, Michael is still talking but I’ve already moved on to more relevant and informative content…working on tomorrows post.

So the whole time I was going to see/meet Jason Sack from Zeus Jones since I really enjoyed his presentation at Minnewebcon back in early April (see below)-but-lo and behold Adrian Ho was there, also representing Zeus Jones as the founder (co?).

I jumped into a table with Adrian & Craig Pladson from Colle McVoy, amongst 8 or so others “aspiring mentees” interested in strategy & planning. Adrian was remarkably funny, surprisingly candid, and clearly brilliant.  Craig was super nice, down to earth, articulate, and also intelligent in his own right.  Most of the questions from the group were snoozers, which is fine, but I just wish I/we had more time to for Q & A to really dig in.

My questions:

• What were some of the obstacles and frustrations that you faced at Fallon that eventually pushed you out on your own towards Zeus, and at what point did you decide that it was the right time to make the change?

• You’re recent blog post about the blend of operations & marketing was excellent, but why is this news?

• Where’s your metaphorical mail room?

• Do you have a growth strategy, if so, what is it?

• In your biased opinion, are there any other local agencies that have embraced a similar corporate culture and philosphy to solving problems for their clients? If so, who?

It’s apparent to me that Zeus Jones is blazing their own trail by ditching everything advertising and offering a value proposition and a level of service that is far superior to what most other local agencies can dream of. Admittedly, I felt a little bad for Craig having to be next to Adrian, because it’s so painfully obvious that while there is a time and place for agencies like Colle McVoy, Zeus is gearing up to be way hotter, which is of course what works in the media world.  I just wish there were more Adrian Ho’s around here…

Thank you Adrian for taking the time to enlighten us! Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to pitch myself, but I will eventually

I really want to thank Craig though from Colle McVoy for taking the time to be there as well.  Craig was kind enough to stick around and chat one on one with me for 30 minutes after the event, which was also very informative.

For example, I learned that while Cole McVoy is moving in the right direction, they are still behind the curve.  But, this game is up for grabs and things can change overnight: best of luck to Colle McVoy!

Jason Sack on UX & Community building at Minewebcon 4/6/09:

My takeaways:

• After five minutes of a pitch, I know if I’m not going to invest, and after 30 minutes to an hour, I generally know if I will

• 3 criteria/Quality Questions:

1. How will you reach the masses? How does a company rise above the noise to attract massive discovery and adoption?  How do we get to one million users? Then how do we get to 10 million users? Then how will you get deep engagement by your users?
2. What is your unique value proposition? I want to see innovation that is categorically distinct from existing propositions.
3. Will your business be capital efficient? Your product must scale intelligently – this is why I like software. A well-coded site can adapt to mass demand without its capital expenditures scaling out of control.

• …but I firmly believe now is the time to take smart risks as entrepreneurs and investors.
• Good ideas need good strategy to realize their potential…

Reid Hoffman & Charlie Rose March 2009