Monday, September 29, 2008

Atlanta Social Media Webcast to Showcase Leading Global Brands


This is a busy week, but I wanted to call your attention to a webcast I am hosting this week,Thursday Oct 2nd at 10:00 AM EDT. It’s a roundtable I put together that includes PR and marketing representatives from some of the world’s leading brands with corporate headquarters in greater Atlanta.  These representatives will discuss their companies’ use of social media. 

To listen and/or participate, please log on here.

The live, on-the-record webcast will address the growing importance of social media and how marketing and corporate communications are leading the way in advocating its adoption. The panel will showcase greater Atlanta based companies but the issues they face are global in scale.

PR Newswire is sponsoring the event, which will be hosted at Coca-Cola’s headquarters.

The panelists include:

Adam Brown, Director, Digital Communications, Coca Cola Company (blog)
Debbie Curtis-Magley, Manager of Corporate Public Relations, UPS
Bert Dumars, Vice President E-Business & Interactive Marketing, Newell Rubbermaid (blog)
Jennifer Martin, Director Public Relations, CNN (blog)
Michael Pranikoff, Director of Emerging Media, PR Newswire

Listeners will be invited to submit written questions for the panelists to address.

As the former head of corporate communications at Atlanta-based EarthLink, I have long been interested in understanding how companies are using social media as a business model and a principal marketing channel – especially for companies based in Atlanta.

PR and marketing professionals are recognizing the importance of social media, but questions persist on securing management buy-in, identifying best practices, and determining a return on investment. This roundtable is an opportunity for some of Atlanta’s biggest companies with some the best known brands in the world to share how and why they are using social media. This is not to minimize the many smaller companies that are using social media, but larger established companies face a unique set of issues.

I hope you can listen in.

Let me get back to you.

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Start Atlanta: Bootstrapping A Community


Startup requisite: empty pizza boxes

Key take-aways from this post:

  • Startup communities don't always happen organically; they need direction and committed drivers.
  • When possible, capitalize on existing infrastructure.
  • Start Atlanta has the potential to serve as a model for other cities trying to reach critical mass for their startup communities.
This past weekend I attended the kick-off of Start Atlanta held in the Appcelerator offices in Buckhead.

The irony of the meeting location was not lost on many in the group of more than 20 entrepreneurs who came together interested in forging a stronger high tech community here in Atlanta. Appcelerator’s Jeff Haynie recently moved to Mountain View, California in the heart of Silicon Valley as part of a $4 million deal led by Storm Ventures.

Haynie has long been a leader in Atlanta’s high tech community and his departing blog post provided some of the inspiration for Start Atlanta.

Start Atlanta is another indication of a growing movement to deepen the area’s high tech’s roots, build a climate for investment and innovation, and attract and retain a younger generation of developers, designers and entrepreneurs.

It’s vencorps meets Y Combinator meets Kiva.

It’s recognition that there is no simple mechanism to fund companies. As one of the organizers described it, Start Atlanta is a breeding ground for community. It’s about sharing resources, cross-pollinating angel investors with entrepreneurs who in some cases have nothing more than an idea. It’s about facilitating connections, raising a collective consciousness and bootstrapping a community.


Gang of Five plus 2

I first learned about Start Atlanta from Patrick Clements whom I met at a recent Capital Lounge hosted by Michael Blake and Scott Burkett. Patrick who began Big Web Apps, (blog ) is part of the Gang of Five (actually seven) that meets regularly over coffee. Its members also include:

Loren Norman who has started several companies including Snowcap Labs (blog ), Alan Pinstein, founder of Showcase Real Estate Web Sites, Wei Yang Co-Founder, Business Development at EasyAutoSales.com (blog), Matthew Sweezey, Duncan Freeman whose company Band Metrics (blog ) is in private beta , and Ray Abram (blog)

Part support group, part strategy session, the Gang of Five decided it wanted to give some permanence to the many events popping up around Atlanta.

And so for two days and three nights, a group of mostly entrepreneurs and some investors met and brainstormed. This week they hope to unveil a community site.

Among those who attended the first night was Jason Ardell, a 25-year old entrepreneur. He is looking to help build a community and get Atlanta more recognition. His company feedscrub.com (blog) is in alpha. Think of his company as a spam filter for RSS feeds, an algorithm that helps find relevant content.

Rather than starting from scratch, Start Atlanta elected to build a site based on code from recently launched Hackers and Backers.

Hackers & Backers (Beta) is a meeting place for entrepreneurs, technical specialists, and investors. It lets you post a project and invite others to join. It helps search for people with relevant skills in your geographic area and check out their connections and credentials.

As co-founder , Ho-Sheng Hsiao who was on hand this past weekend told me, “Hackers and Backers is a combination of a social networking site and classified ads.”

He said he had a hard time looking for other entrepreneurs and thought a social networking site could spark community. “Start Atlanta is doing the same thing I wanted to do with Hackers and Backers. I wanted to see if there was a way to work together.”

And so Start Atlanta is building off Hsiao's platform. They are adding several features to support development of the community, including a mini-project called Badgely.


Badgely prototype


As Alan Pinstein emailed after day 2, “Badgely is a system we have devised to track individual participation in the community and attendance at community events.”

To understand Badgely badges, think merit badges for entrepreneurs. These badges are meant to increase visibility and reward participants who attend and actively engage in events around the city devoted to startups and the high-tech community.

Through the first weekend, Alan wrote me that they “decided to focus on first getting the core community-fostering infrastructure in place while we make sure that we get buy-in from anticipated funders." Plus, he added, “it's going to take us at least several weeks to get the legal issues sorted out.”

There will also be an offline component to Start Atlanta where investors and entrepreneurs will be able to interact. It will also leverage the many existing events in Atlanta to help educate entrepreneurs and investors.

And so now the really hard part begins – sustaining a movement. At least for now, Start Atlanta joins Startup Lounge, Startup Riot, and Startup Weekend in establishing a viable community for entrepreneurialism.

Let me get back to you.

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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

MFG.com: Where Manufacturing Meets Web 2.0

MFG.com's A.J. Sweat and Mitch Free

In my search for Atlanta based Web 2.0 companies I came across MFG.com; it is the match.com for connecting suppliers with buyers in manufacturing, and it's proving to be one of Atlanta’s notable high tech success stories.

It’s a social network, but don’t expect members to “poke” one another. Their needs are not California cool or Atlanta hot. Instead the company is focused on the 300 processes that fabricate, mold, cast, extrude, forge, and stamp.

MFG.com is an online marketplace servicing the global manufacturing community. Its platform simplifies the complex process of sourcing and selling manufacturing services. The technology connects buyers with suppliers of manufacturing services while directing the collaboration, quoting, due diligence and analysis processes.

MFG.com consolidates the once-fragmented world of custom manufacturing into a more efficient marketplace, enabling products to be sourced and built more easily, quickly, inexpensively, and at higher quality levels.

An Early Inspiration

MFG.com’s founder and CEO Mitch Free began his career as a machinist on a factory floor. An early inspiration for MFG.com came from Lendingtree.com’s tagline ( “When banks compete, you win.”) Free recognized that this same philosophy could be applied to manufacturing.

With operations reaching internationally, Free is succeeding where past B2B marketplace sites and software developers (VerticalNet, PurchasePro, and FreeMarkets) failed. Many other so-called B2B companies rose and fell spectacularly during the dot com bubble meltdown.

This I know first hand. I bought VerticalNet on March 10, 2000 at its peak. The next trading day, the Nasdaq bubble began bursting many a retirement plan.

Today approximately 180,000 companies around the world have registered.

What is the secret of their success? Delivering value is one reason; Web 2.0 is another. Where Web 1.0 was static and about controlling the environment, Web 2.0 is dynamic and about engaging customers internationally to build a better online experience.

Mitch recognized the power of community to drive transactions. Search engines can’t do it. Nor can directories, which need user lists to work. With Web 2.0, content generates the circulation, and community creates efficiencies.

While the adoption curve may take longer with communities, the connections are stickier. With the MFG.com community, Free sees an opportunity for people to interact, collaborate, negotiate and leverage collective intelligence.

The process takes time. Manufacturing in general has been slower to embrace the Internet. And suppliers in particular are not accustomed to transparency. The shift in control puts prospects and customers in charge.

To help extend the power of the community, MFGX.com was created under AJ Sweatt’s direction. The goal is to facilitate discussion and let users voice their opinions. Unlike other companies, MFG.com is not concerned about negative comments. The community is self-policing, and Free would much rather be aware of what is being said than discourage negative feedback.

With MFGX.com, users create their own profile to network with peers, build their reputation, promote their company, find employment (or employees), and buy and sell things.

Why MFG.com

MFG.com is interesting on many fronts for me. One is its commitment to Atlanta.

Despite his company’s success, Mitch had considered heading to the west coast, particularly given Atlanta’s attitude toward web 2.0 and its adoption rate. He decided to stay recognizing that he would be trading one set of problems for another -- finding developers and scarcity of resources for the West Coast’s hyper competitive environment.

MFG.com is embracing Web 2.0, a technology that runs counter to its industry’s prevailing culture, and its understanding of negative comments is unusual for many companies in general and Atlanta corporate culture in particular.

I am particularly interested in what MFG.com is looking to do in its next stage of development. In fact, it was through my conversation with Mitch Free and reading MoneyBall that I have begun to understand how data can be used to sell social media. Social networks generate immense amounts of data, which in turn can spur new services and transform companies. In other words, social media is not a cost center.

That’s what Free is doing. Buyers and suppliers are always looking for new information. Their transactions generate data. Free is mining that data and helping MFG.com create a new generation of services.

One service is predictive cost modeling. Based on data about parts ordered, MFG.com can help suppliers and buyers predict the cost of products with similar features and how much to charge.

While I know far less about drill bits than digital ones, I appreciate how MFG.com has embraced Web 2.0 and applied it to new areas. Its success is a valuable lesson for any company who questions the power of community to drive innovation.

Let me get back to you.

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Friday, September 12, 2008

Twitter Twitter Everywhere


Photos by Maigh

The other night, I attended the inaugural meeting of the ATL Tweet-Up in midtown Atlanta.

As its organizer Maigh explained it to me, the ATL Tweet-Up was an outgrowth of APWBWGTTD– Atlanta People With Blogs Who Get Together To Drink.

Now to be honest, I learned about the ATL Tweet-Up via email, not Twitter. But as I have admitted more than once, I still only use Twitter (http://twitter.com/bernaise) intermittently to capture random observations.

I know many people who swear by it, but I know even more people who have never heard of it.

Nevertheless, Twitter is gaining traction. Here in Atlanta, Mike Schinkel hosted a “Why You Must Have a Twitter Strategy" at the August session of the Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs Meet-Up.

And fellow Atlanta blogger Toby Bloomberg did a great posting on local companies and organizations that use Twitter including The Home Depot, Delta Airlines, and the Fulton County Office of the Sheriff.

I have written about Twitter’s business applications myself, but I was intrigued that a social event could be driven by 140 characters at time.

Now at this ATL Tweet-Up there was not much tweeting going on – at least what I could see. But that’s OK. I had a chance to catch up with Grayson Daughters, Lance Weatherby and meet fellow bloggers Scott Lockhart and Kimberly Turner. Their startup Regator (blog) “gathers and organizes the web’s best blog posts to make it easy to find them.”

I asked them about Twitter or it’s more formal name – microblogging. For them, it’s a good way for individuals to communicate. But it’s not a high priority given that there are at LEAST sixty million blogs online right now to trudge through, according to Discover magazine, and about 175,000 more are added every day (about two every second).

For me, I am approaching Twitter with an open mind. You clearly can’t ignore its personal and professional utility. But perhaps Evan LaPointe’s newly launched blog TATTOPITW.com says it all. I also met Evan at the Tweet-up (which goes to show you the power of social media to connect.) TATTOPITW stands for because there are two types of people in the world. Business or pleasure, there are those who get Twitter and those who never will.

Let me get back to you.


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Monday, September 08, 2008

Atlanta Web 2.0 Conference to Feature Israeli Companies

WorkLight, Unisfair, and Velingo are among the approximately 15 to 20 Israelis companies that are expected to attend a unique Web 2.0 conference this September 24 and 25 in Atlanta. It’s called “Empowering the Connected Enterprise,” and it will bring together some of the most innovative Web 2.0 Israeli companies with some of the biggest names in American business.

The American Israel Chamber of Commerce is organizing the event. Their goal is to spur investment by helping Israeli companies gain a foothold in the United States and for American companies to benefit from Israeli expertise in Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is clearly on everyone’s minds these days. I am heading to New York in a week to attend Web 2.0 Expo. The AICC conference is part of an effort to better understand how web 2.0 technologies can transform business and facilitate communication and collaboration between the enterprise and its customers, vendors, and employees.

IBM is sponsoring the event. I recently spoke with David Boloker, IBM Software Group's CTO, Emerging Internet Technology. He is one of the speakers and organizers of the conference. Dave is a futurist and strategist. He spends about a third of his time talking and working with venture backed companies and is greatly involved with Web 2.0 initiatives.

Dave was part of the team that brought Java into IBM and helped it flourish. Now he spends a lot of his time working on AJAX and next-generation collaborative systems.
Defining Web 2.0

Part of the challenge is defining what exactly is Web 2.0. Especially from 2003 to 2006, the hype around Web 2.0 made it a perfect case study for the Gartner hype cycle. Starting in 2005-2006, Boloker began to see a change; he began noticing that these tools could do more and were getting easier to use. User Interfaces were getting advanced while still supporting pure Ajax.

Boloker breaks Web 2.0 into 4 categories -- standards, rendering, social interaction/social networks, mashups/content – to better understand what Web 2.0 can do and how it is evolving.

We have developed standards/defacto standards like Atom & RSS that allow syndicated content to be read across different browsers or viewers. Today, we are better at rendering so it easer to see content (static or streaming ) and read files of almost any type all within the Web container. Social networks now can use APIs to engage members & businesses to extend their reach, create profiles, and interact. We are now able to easily import, combine, and repurpose content across many different contexts from business to consumer.

In fact Boloker thinks we may actually be at Web 2.5. We are moving from the desktop to mobile applications. We are taking advantage of the long tail where more money can be made in narrow market niches.
Israel's High Tech Industry

In his position at IBM, Boloker works with many startup companies including Israeli companies. According to the AICCSE, Israel is one of the world's most dynamic sources for high tech companies and has produced over 4,000 startups in the past few years. Outside of the US and Canada, Israel has more companies publicly traded on the US exchanges than any other country.

And what are some of the Israeli companies that are driving this innovation? Some companies expected to attend are:

WorkLight provides Web 2.0-style access to corporate data that reside in enterprise applications. With WorkLight, employees themselves define how information they need is aggregated and presented, regardless of the source.

Unisfair powers the world's virtual events and virtual business environments. Virtual events and business environments are used for marketing, recruiting and training purposes.

Velingo developed a new and unique Social Search technology. Unlike other technologies that need user interaction (tagging for example), Velingo community knowledge is totally transparent, which dramatically enhances search.

PLYMedia has developed an interactive Web-based platform (BubblePly) that lets users create their own pop-up videos by inserting comic-style speech and thought bubbles.

KENSHOO SEARCH™, is an end-to-end SEM platform, which automates the process of building and optimizing cross channel search campaigns.

These companies are a cross section of Israel’s web 2.0 companies. Their services are increasingly in demand in Atlanta, which currently lacks a strong web 2.0 presence.

If successful, AICC Vice Chairman Lorin Coles wants this conference to not only help make introductions and attract investments; he hopes it will change perceptions and help put Atlanta on the map as a high tech alternative to Silicon Valley and New York.

Let me get back to you.


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Monday, September 01, 2008

IBM Executive to Speak at TAG Enterprise 2.0 Event

I have written from time to time about my involvement in the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Enterprise 2.0 Society. TAG is dedicated to the promotion and economic advancement of the state's technology industry. The Enterprise 2.0 TAG Society explores key strategic and organizational shifts that organizations need to make in order to adapt to the changing landscape of the digital world.

For those who will be in Atlanta on Wednesday, September 3, 2008 (7:30am - 9:00am at the GTRI Conference Center), TAG Enterprise has invited growth & innovation expert Steven Kloeblen to discuss proactive approaches to business transformation.

I wanted to pass along some information that Sherry Heyl the chair of Enterprise 2.0 sent out:

Steven's role as VP of Business Development for IBM's World Development Initiative has made him a sought after thought leader in the area of global growth through the application of enterprise 2.0 technology. Steve will refer to IBM's recently completed bi-annual survey of over 1,100 CEO's from around the globe. He will also speak to the trends that demonstrate how the highest performing companies scale innovation, extend and integrate global partnership networks, exploit disruptive business models and embrace social responsibility as a competitive advantage.

A little more background. In his current role as IBM Vice President Business Development – New Growth Platforms Steve concentrates on developing market strategies and business designs in new growth environments. Steven is also leading The IBM World Development Initiative. This is a group of more than 250 volunteer IBM'ers focused on creating a commercial business that leverages IBM's capabilities to address the needs of the world's most poor. Together the WDI has committed to a 10-year outcome to improve the lives of 1 billion people, while generating $1 billion annually of profitable revenue.

If you want more information, go to the Enterprise 2.0 site. I hope you can make it.

Let me get back to you.

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Monday, August 18, 2008

Sig Mosley, Charting Atlanta's High Tech Industry

Atlanta high tech industry pioneer Sig Mosley

His offices speak to his position as one of the deans of Atlanta’s high-tech community. The wood paneling in his lobby is a big contrast to the concrete digs of a typical start-up investment opportunity. And in the search for Atlanta’s most influential figures in technology, Sig Mosley of Imlay Investments would be on most everyone’s list.

Sig has been with Imlay since 1990. Founded by John Imlay, Imlay Investments is a private firm that provides funding for early stage technology companies. Eleven years earlier, Sig began working with John Imlay as he helped transform a near bankrupt Atlanta company called Management Science America into the largest independent application software company in the world. Sold to Dun & Bradstreet Corporation for $333 million in 1990, MSA is one of the great stories in the history of Atlanta’s high tech investment community.

Over the years, Sig has been involved in over 100 deals with Tradex Technologies, Internet Security Systems and Witness Systems as some of his biggest.

I recently sat down with Sig to reflect on the changes that he has witnessed from his perch as president at Imlay Investments. So much has changed over the years. He hands me a chart that diagrams the evolution of Atlanta’s tech community. Four companies -- MSA, National Data Corporation, Scientific Atlanta, and Interstate Communications – help form the base. (All by the way are no longer independent companies.) They in turn formed additional companies that fan out across the page -- making others rich along the way.

Over that time, he has watched the emergence of an angel investment community. He has seen the glory days of the dot com bubble in 1998 and 1999 where he would see 40 business plans a week to its subsequent bust which sucked the air out Atlanta’s high tech industry.

The Dry Years

As Sig told me, “No one anticipated how quickly and how hard the dot com collapse would affect the local angel community.”

It has taken a long time to recover with 2001-2006 being especially dry years. But it is not necessarily a bad thing. Today, he sees one or two business plans a week, but they are better quality plans as opposed to the many me-toos of the dot com era.

He points to Venture Labs and a new generation of advocates like Sanjay Parekh and Scott Burkett who are helping to transform Atlanta’s high tech community. He also points to leaders like Chris Klaus at Kaneva and Bob Cramer (blog) at ThePort who have achieved success and have gone back for another round with new companies.

For all its success, Atlanta is not without its challenges. He believes that Google might not have been funded if it had started here. Web 2.0 holds promise for Sig, but he doesn't see as many opportunities for social media.

Sig Mosley has remained in Atlanta. But as a community, we continue to see departures -- most recently Jeff Haynie's -- of our most talented, even for the best reasons.

Becoming a Top 5 Five Technology Community

His vision is for Atlanta to become one of the top 5 high tech communities in the country. To do this, he believes Atlanta needs to see more venture money and more angels investing in technology. And successful entrepreneurs need to get back into the fray after they achieve success. He supports the passage of proposed legislation that would allow the state of Georgia to allocate a portion of the State’s pension fund dollars for alternative investments. This legislation would go a long way to helping spawn high tech investment and demonstrate the state’s commitment to technology.

What motivates Sig? It’s more than money; he has made plenty. He doesn’t believe you should become an angel investor if it is only about making money. Sig believes in giving back to the community. Reflecting on his success, he gives me a copy of Jungle Rules written by John Imlay.

In it, John shares his vision for being a successful entrepreneur and investor. He talks about stalking success like a "tiger" as well as "finding, teaching, mobilizing, motivating the tiger in business people and turning them loose to succeed."

It is interesting that in a firm focused on technology, Imlay stresses the “dying art of old fashioned human relationships and how they bind people together in business.”

If Atlanta is going to make its mark in the high tech industry, it will need to find its tiger. Equally important, the next generation of entrepreneurs will be well served by remembering the contributions of pioneers like Sig Mosley who have provided the foundation for future success.

Let me get back to you.

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Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Lessons from Appcelerator's Move to Silicon Valley

As reported by The Atlanta Business Chronicle, (subscription required) Atlanta based Appcelerator and its CEO Jeff Haynie (blog) are heading to Silicon Valley as part of a $4 million deal led by Storm Ventures. Rumors had been swirling for a few weeks and shame on me for not chiming in earlier.

The announcement is great news for Jeff and disappointing news for those of us trying to grow and sustain Atlanta’s tech community. It’s also ironic that the Atlanta Business Chronicle would break the news. As of late The ABC has been criticized for not readily embracing the local tech community or even having a regular tech reporter.

But break the news they did and kudos to them.

However tempting, I am not going to speculate on who lost Jeff Haynie to Silicon Valley. What I will talk about is what we do from here.

I have been following companies like Appcelerator in my quest to promote social media awareness and adoption. Appcelerator allows developers to incorporate interactive features into their web sites without the need for JavaScript or plug-ins.

Haynie himself has been a leader in Atlanta’s tech community. Previously, he was co-founder and CTO of Vocalocity and has been regularly involved in such technology events as SoCon08, Barcamp, and Atlanta Startup Weekend.

Over the last couple of months I have talked to several entrepreneurs like Jeff. He represents the opportunities and challenges of the Atlanta tech community.

Jeff cut his teeth in Atlanta but it’s hard to compete with the Silicon Valley. Atlanta lacks the Valley’s intensity. It can’t provide the same level of financial support. The investment community here is not as large and is its level of commitment to high tech is not as strong.

According to John Yates, a leading technology attorney in Atlanta, 10 percent of Atlanta companies get funded by Silicon Valley VCs and then move there. Esgut and Fuzzwich are two examples of local companies who saw more opportunities out there.

And Sig Mosley one of the deans of Atlanta’s tech community speculated that Google might not have been funded if it had started here.

So what lessons can we learn from Jeff’s departure?

Entrepreneur Scott Burkett says we are at a crossroads;

The Atlanta community has a choice to make. We can continue to play second fiddle to communities with half of the innovation present here. Or we can treat Atlanta as a greenfield opportunity and evolve. There are plenty of problems to tackle, and lots of work to be done - but it can, and will happen. But certain views, approaches, cultural hangups, and models will either need to evolve, or be pushed out of the way (this is already beginning to happen).

Now I know he wasn’t referring to me when he said “a greenfield opportunity.”

But I do agree that we need to approach things differently. Part of the solution is web 2.0 and social media. Web 2.0 is driving new business opportunities, and social media is helping us get there.

Through the power of blogs and tools like Twitter, the entrepreneurial community is starting to engage in an open, meaningful dialogue. We are no longer beholden to traditional media and connections to obtain information and access.

The online discussions may be messy. We may later regret the emotions that pour out, but we have at our disposal a forum to address real needs and present solutions. Through the collective wisdom of the community we can offer advice and help enterpreneurs create more fundable business models. Through social media, we can foster a creative environment where ideas matter. Yes we may vent, yes we may rant, but along the way we are taking advantage of these new channels that will hopefully spur investment in Atlanta.

Finally, I can take heart in knowing we can create successful high-tech companies. The challenge is keeping the homegrown talent here.

Let me get back to you.

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Friday, July 25, 2008

Atlanta's Top 50 Tech - Part II

I wanted to give you an update on the search for Atlanta’s Top Tech 50. I have gotten a lot of feedback but there are more names out there. To organize the nominees, I have divided the group into the categories below. There may be some overlap, but I think it is a good way to organize the names. I tried to put in links where I could find them. If you have more current or more accurate information, please let me know.

As for what most influential means, I like what Brandy Nagel said in her comment on my previous post:

"Influential" is the combination of power and direction. "Influence" is the power to affect people or events…but "being influential" means using that power to move people and events in a particular direction. The people on your list have a passion for technology, they have a vision for the future, and the motivation to do something.

Here is where the list stands now. At some point, I also have to figure out a selection process. In the the spirit of social media, I am looking to the community to help make final decisions. In the mean time, please keep sending me your suggestions.

Academic
Benn Konsynski - George S Craft Professor of Business Administration at Emory University

Greg Laudeman - Georgia Tech

Kathleen Kurre - Georgia Tech's TI:GER Program

Leonard Witt - Kennesaw State University

Margi Barberi - Georgia Tech's TI:GER Program

Marie Thursby - Hal and John Smith Chair in Entrepreneurship, Professor Executive Director, TI:GER®

Merrick Furst - Associate Dean of the College of Computing at GT

Rich DeMillo - Georgia Tech

Stephen Fleming - Georgia Tech/VentureLab, Seraph Group


Associations/Councils/Chambers
David Harnett - Vice President Technology Industry Expansion at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce

Lance Weatherby - Venture Catalyst with the Advanced Technology Development Center at Georgia Tech

Mike Cassidy - CEO Georgia Research Alliance

Tino Mantella - President, Technology Association of Georgia

Allen Graber - ATDC


Financial/Investors
Alan Taetle - Noro Moseley Partners

Allen Mosely - Noro Moseley Partners

Ben Dyer - Cordova Ventures

Charlie Paparelli - Paparelli Ventures

Clark Gilder - Atlanta Technology Angels

Freg Sturgis - Managing Director H.I.G. Ventures

Knox Massey - Atlanta Technology Angels

Mark Johnson - ERM Ventures

Meade Sutterfield - Angel Investor, Entrepeneur mentor

Melanie Leeth - Imlay Investments

Sig Mosley - President Imlay Investments

Stuart Harvey - CEO, Elavon Global Aquiring solutions

Wayt King - Founder, N2 Broadband


Government
Carol Henderson - Director of Innovation & Technology for the GDEcD


Legal
Jeff Leavitt - DLA Piper

John Yates - Partner, Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP


Media/Digital Content
Brian Ussery - Writer for Blogoscoped.com and SearchEngineWatch.com

Drew Ermenc - Catalyst Magazine


Mid/Large Cap
Becky Blalock - CIO Southern Company

Brian Shield - CIO Weather Channel

Guido Sacchi - CIO CompuCredit

Joan Herbig - CEO, ControlScan

Mike Reidenbach - CIO Global Payments

Pete Kight - CEO Checkfree

Pete Sinisgalli - CEO, Manhattan Associates

Robb Webb - CIO Equifax

Robert Hendricks - National Vice President and General Manager of IT, McKesson Provider Technologies


Non-Profit
Penny Lewandowski - Director, Entrepreneurship Development, Edward Lowe Foundation


PR/Advertising/Marketing
Chris Knoch - Head of Best Practices at Omniture Inc., Omniture's Webinar Instructor, AiMA Board Chairman

David Cummings - Founder, Hannon Hill and Pardot

Sherry Heyl - SoCon, et al

Startups/Entrepreneurs/Small Business
Bill Nussey - CEO, Silverpop

Braxton Jarratt - CEO, Clearleap

Christopher Klaus - President and CEO of Kaneva and founder of Internet Security Systems

Dave Gould - Former CEO Witness Systems

Derek Smith - CEO Choicepoint

Dolan Falconer - Founder and CEO at ScanTech

Gregg Frieshtat - former CEO, INTENT MediaWorksg

Jeff Haynie - Appcelerator

Jim Geiger - Cbeyond

Jim McDonald - former CEO, Scientific Atlanta

Jim Stratigos - CEO, Jacket Micro Devices

John Huntz - Arcapita

Leland Strange - CEO Intelligent Systems

Mike Schinkel - Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs

Mitch Free - MFG.com

Neeraj Basandra - President Primus Software

Patrick Gaul - VP US Operation, Tescom

Paul Judge - CTO, PureWire

Paul Stamatiou - Georgia Tech student, widely read blogger, Founder of Skribit

Rick Latona - local domainer with multi-million dollar portfolio

Roger Barnette - CEO SearchIgnite.com, previous CEO of eTour.com

Said Mohammadioun - former CTO, Intellisync

Sanjay Parekh - Founder and Organizer for Startup Riot

Scott Burkett - Serial Entrepreneur and a Founder of the Startup Lounge

Tom Noonan - former CEO, ISS

Sanjeev Tirath - CEO Pyramid Consulting

Tycho Howle - CEO, NuBridges

Wain Kellum - CEO, Omnilink & Chairman of Techbridge


Let me get back to you.

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Posted by Dan Greenfield at 08:28:28 | Permanent Link | Comments (10) |

Thursday, July 24, 2008

My Boys on Kaneva: Using Social Media to Extend Broadcast TV


This evening at 10:00 PM Eastern Time, traditional media meets new media, as the cast of the Turner Broadcasting System show My Boys will do a live chat in the Turner HQ in Kaneva, an online social entertainment world.

My Boys, which airs Thursdays at 9:30 PM ET, is a comedy about a Chicago sports writer and her group of guy friends. Actors Jordan Spiro (PJ), Reid Scott (Brendan), Jamie Kaler (Mike), Michael Bunin (Kenny), Kyle Howard (Bobby), and Kellee Stewart (Stephanie) are all scheduled to participate.

It’s an example of how social media is helping TBS to extend the viewer experience of its fan base and how Kaneva is using broadcast television to draw traffic to its site. (Turner is also taking advantage of fan forums and widgets to extend the brand.)

As Kaneva founder and CEO Christopher Klaus said, “Kaneva provides entirely new ways for audiences to watch, participate and interact with their favorite TV programming.”

Kaneva combines elements of social networks and virtual worlds. Its members create digital versions of themselves -- avatars -- and then meet up in a modern day 3D world. Every Kaneva member gets a Kaneva City Loft -- their own 3D space – which they can decorate and furnish in their unique style. Tonight avatars will be able to interact with cast members.

An Atlanta Connection

While Tricia Melton, senior vice president, marketing for TBS, TNT and Turner Classic Movies “is always looking for new ways” to extend the TBS brand and market My Boys, she candidly admits that the Atlanta connection helps. Both Kaneva and TBS are based here in Atlanta.

TBS’s New Products Group signed a one-year deal with Kaneva last fall to build and test virtual world extensions of its entertainment properties.

For producers of network television, social media opens new worlds for an audience demographic that tends to be younger. Fans who meet on Kaneva are “super fans” seeking a more visceral experience.

Makes Good Business Sense

Greg Foster, left Turner in March to join Atlanta-based venture firm Noro-Moseley as a general partner. He witnessed the forging of the Turner/Kaneva deal and feels "the The Turner-Kaneva relationship is a great example of how Atlanta's media community should be working together."

He also believes the Southeast is ready for entrepreneurs to develop digital media businesses along side traditional media companies like Turner, Cox and the Weather Channel that are all based in Atlanta.

As he recently told Tech Journal South, “Ad dollars are flowing from traditional to digital media, including social networking and Web 2.0 sites and gaming. There’s a critical mass of dollars moving to digital media and a lot of businesses are taking advantage of that.”

At the same time, firms like Turner are attempting to stay at the forefront of consumer technology trends. According to Melton, it’s too early from a ratings perspective to determine if social media is a success, but Turner is listening to its fans.

As Melton explained, the marriage of social media and fan enthusiasm has spilled over into other TBS properties. Turner created Embrace Your Grace -- a blog for fans of the show Saving Grace, which stars Holly Hunter.

Research found that viewers were writing about the show on their own and using Holly Hunter’s character as a launching pad to discuss issues raised on the show – often in very personal ways. The Embrace Your Grace site was a way to channel that enthusiasm and explore personal issues in a positive way.

Raising Interesting Questions

The marriage of real and virtual worlds and traditional and new media does raise some interesting questions. What is the best way to leverage virtual worlds? Should the actors interact as themselves, as their characters or avatars? And how should fans interact with the avatars?

A live chat represents an early experiment in social media. Having actors represent themselves is a logical first step. It gets even more interesting if avatars extend plot lines and virtual worlds extend back-stories that can’t be captured in a traditional episode.

How do you manage the brand at the same time you extend it in ways you may not have anticipated? And who controls that interaction – the producers, the network, Kaneva, the fans?

In creating a platform to engage its viewers, TBS will experience the same issues that any company faces when they try to take advantage of user generated content.

Like it or not, customers are going online to talk about companies and their products. Companies like Turner are going to have decide if there are going ignore, restrict or embrace what their customers or fans are doing.

Despite the challenges, I think we need to recognize that companies are no longer in complete control of their brands. To be successful, they need to understand that they are now sharing the brand with their customers.

Let me get back to you.

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