MAVA's Seven on Seven: A Recap

I attended MAVA’s “Seven on Seven,” billed as Seven Topics, Seven Speakers, Seven Minutes. Speakers included:

• Dr. Srini Mirmira, Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency, Dept. of Energy
• Jack Davies, Venture Philanthropist, Venture Philanthropy Partners
• Robert Kipps, Managing Director, KippsDeSanto
• George Daly, Dean, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University
• Patrick Coffey, Managing Director, Healthcare Credit Group, CapitalSource
• Geoff Tracy, Owner, Geoff Geoff’s and Lia’s Restaurants
• Kiran Hebbar, Partner, Valhalla Partners

Though all the speakers had an interesting perspective, Chef Geoff brought down the house with his passion as an entrepreneur and his story of starting his first restaurant in a foreclosed space with a kitchen full of rotting food. He aptly described entrepreneurs as, “people who see opportunity where others don’t – and think ‘how hard could it be?’ By the time they realize how hard it is, it’s too late.”

The common denominator, if there was one, was that opportunity exists for entrepreneurs and investors in almost every sector if you look hard enough. In energy, government, healthcare, higher education, technology -- even retail and restaurants, the passionate entrepreneur can see something that others might miss, clean out the proverbial kitchen, and come out smelling like roses – or at least like soup.

-- Katie Hanusik

March's Must-Attend Webinar: Technology Marketing Alliance's Webinar Featuring Charlene Li

If you're only able to attend one webinar next month, I highly recommend checking out the free event hosted by the Technology Marketing Alliance (TMA), which features renowned social media analyst and best selling author Charlene Li. 

In 2008, Charlene co-authored the bestseller "Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Tecnologies" with Josh Bernoff - a book that has become required reading for any executive or marketer looking to launch a successful social strategy. Since Groundswell published, Li has continued her role as a thought leader on emerging technologies and evangelist on the impact of social technologies in business, and also founded Altimeter Group, a consulting firm that provides companies with a pragmatic approach to disruptive technologies. Charlene's next book, "Open: How Leaders Win By Letting Go," is set to publish this May.

TMA's webinar is a great opportunity to hear Li's thoughts on social media for the enterprise, and best practices for developing a social strategy. If you want more information on the webinar, TMA has more on their site. You can also register by visiting http://charleneli.eventbrite.com/. 

-Stephanie

@stephstad

How the Federal Workforce Consumes Media

Last week I attended Market Connections’ unveiling of the 2009-2010 Federal Media and Marketing Study. In its second year, this study aims to uncover how Federal decision makers get their news and information. Some interesting findings (from my perspective):

• Respondents named 36 outlets that are key to daily news and information gathering. These broke out to 14 social sites, 28 federally-focused publications, and 12 general business and news outlets.
• Top ranking federal pubs (across the whole respondent base) were Government Executive, Federal Times, Federal Computer Week, Government Computer News, and Defense News.
• Top ranking websites were CNN, Govexec.com, MSNBC, Fox News, and the Washington Post.
• While 45% of respondents said they prefer to read trade news as a combination of print and online, another 34% said they preferred print as compared to only 13% preferring online only.
• Tradeshow attendance is skewing lower with only 46% reporting they attended a show in the past year.
• Social media continues to grow, with the biggest jump from last year’s survey being the usage of LinkedIn (up to 16% from 4%).
• Social media faces hurdles in becoming a business tool for government with 55% of respondents unable to access social sites at work.

-Piper Conrad

Walk the Red Carpet During Awards Season in DC

As we await the announcement on February 2nd of the official nominations for this year's 82nd Academy Awards, we can also look to this regional area, where we are awash with own awards circuit recognizing excellence in business, growth, leadership, employee development and more.

The awards season started out strong last week, with two of the hottest award celebrations in town, which (unfortunately) were on the same night, but both attracted sold out crowds.  SmartCEO held its annual SmartCEO Future 50 Gala, recognizing the fastest growing companies in the Washington, DC region over a three year period, and the Washington Business Journal held its annual Book of Lists party, recognizing all of the businesses, organizations and associations that claimed a spot on the top of each of their respective lists throughout the year.

In case you missed these two "See and Be Seen" galas, here are a few more hot tickets to explore that are right around the corner. It's not too late to nominate and be nominated...you can't win if you don't enter!  I've been to each of these in past years, and they are not to be missed. Here are the ones top of mind, listed in order of when nominations are due:

Apollo Awards 2010 / Produced by Helios HR

Deadline: February 19, 2010

The Apollo Awards has raised the bar in its annual recognition of a company's effort toward employee development and retention. Particularly in these troubled times, taking care of your company's biggest asset--people--never goes out of style. We entered this program last year and were proud to emerge as a finalist. This is a nomination process that enables one to truly your own practices of employee development and its importance in building great companies.  Awards Gala:  June 3, 2010.

Women In Technology - Leadership Awards Banquet

Deadline: February 19, 2010

Women in Technology (WIT) is holding its Annual Leadership Awards Gala in May which recognizes women in leadership in the categories of entrepreneurship, global impact, corporate excellence, government accomplishments and more. Last year, this Awards Gala inspired the book, No One Path, released last year with a special forward from Maureen Bunyan, co-anchor at WJLA-TV. The book highlights previous winners from over the past decade, sharing their leadership stories. Awards Gala: May 20, 2010.

Best Places to Work in Greater Washington 2010

Deadline: February 26, 2010

This award is cool to enter, not only for the accolades and bragging rights for finalists, but also because regardless of how you finish, you will receive a complementary employee survey administered by third-party Quantum Research, which can provide insight into your company's morale, retention, leadership, trust, alignment, etc. You need to apply online, and ask your employees to submit an anonymous online evaluation to augment your nomination. The WBJ is hosting a nominations "how to" webinar on 2/2/10.  Awards Gala: TBD.

SECAF (Small and Emerging Contractor Advisory Forum) 2nd Annual Awards Gala

Deadline: February 28, 2010
SECAF held its Inaugural Awards Gala last year, as a way to recognize the often overlooked marketplace of small, growing and emerging government contractors. Companies will be recognized in the categories of $0-$6M, $6-$12M and $12-$25M, and a special award will be given to a Small Business Partner of the Year (greater than $25M) and a Government Advocate of the Year. Last year's Gala was a sellout, so mark your calendars!  Awards Gala: April 29, 2010.

I am certain there are more out there that aren't on this succinct list, so please share and we'll keep you updated on deadlines!

--Elizabeth Shea

More LinkedIn Tips: Events and Groups

As a frequent event attendee, I'm always on the lookout for great upcoming events, and LinkedIn offers lots of ways to stay in the loop.  One of the best places to start is by downloading the Events application to your LinkedIn profile.  Once downloaded, popular events and those events recommended by your contacts are available.  Step by step instructions can be found here.

When LinkedIn events were first announced at the end of 2008, it was designed to recommend events that might be of interest based on your profile.  These events come from user recommendations and sources such as EventBrite and TechWeb.  This feature was further enhanced in the middle of 2009 to make it easier to see what events your contacts are attending and improve the interface.  As of today, there are almost 25,000 events listed on LinkedIn, including 467 in the Washington, DC area -- and about 75 of those are on marketing topics.  Other features include the ability to search, RSVP and promote events to your network.  Because this service is free, it seems like a no-brainer for those that regularly attend or promote events.

The event application becomes even more powerful when combined with LinkedIn Groups.  Group managers can send emails alerting their members of new events (this is especially valuable for members that don't frequently login to LinkedIn), or members can post events to the group's discussion board.

If you're interested in enhancing your personal profile using LinkedIn, check out this earlier post.

And if you're specifically interested in public sector events, be sure to check out SpeakerBox client GovEvents.

See you around town.

 -- Katie Hanusik

The ‘Fish at CES 2010

The beginning of January marked my first trip to geek nirvana (not to mention Vegas), as I attended CES 2010 to help SpeakerBox client Cernium launch their newest consumer product: Archerfish Solo, the world’s first Thinking Camera. Being a CES virgin, I was completely blown away by the scale and the lengths that many companies go to just to drive booth traffic. Never mind the nearly naked models hawking Ed Hardy gadget accessories – Marvell, a semiconductor company, had Stan Lee at their booth…because nothing screams semiconductors like the father of Marvel comics, right?

At any rate, the show was successful from Cernium’s perspective: The overall response to Archerfish Solo was positive and came with a lot of media interest. Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret from the Wall Street Journal even stopped by the booth for a demonstration from Cernium’s CEO, Craig Chambers!

Being that this was my initial experience with the technology wonderland that is CES, I have some thoughts for PR folks and their client companies looking to get through the noise that surrounds the event.

1. Press events are your friend. Seriously. Even though this pre-show activities cost extra (and some aren’t even produced by CES, like ShowStoppers), they are well worth the price from the exposure alone. Events like Unveiled and ShowStoppers are press-only, so you are ensuring that you’re getting your product in front of the media you care about. And they’re more intimate (Unveiled was about 50 companies this year), so the odds of a high-profile journalist stopping by for a chat are much greater than during CES itself.
   
   
2. Treat everyone who comes to your booth as important. I always stress this in every post I write, but it’s never more important than at CES. Often attendee badges, particularly for the media, don’t reflect who they actually work or write for. Someone registered as press for their own, low-profile blog might actually be a columnist for CNET, so give all visitors respect, no matter who they are.
    
3. Make time to see the floor. It’s important for both you and your client to get out to the show floor to see what other vendors (and competitors) are doing. Maybe it will give you ideas for next year or you might even run into some key press or industry contacts at an unrelated demo. At the very least it gives you some insight as to what the rest of your industry and your competitors are up to.

--John Terrill

Green Energy and Green IT: Change is Coming

Yesterday's Women in Technology event on Green Energy and Green IT featured three knowledgeable local speakers:

Hank Dearden of Virsant
Bill Lyons of Seneca Creek Partners
Marco Luzuriaga of Limeleap

The come from different perspectives, but all three agreed that we can't rely on social responsibility alone to drive environmental policies and change.

Bill set the stage by explaining the macro factors that are driving interest in green energy:

• Fossil fuels are becoming increasingly scarce and increasingly difficult and expensive to extract.  Many experts predict that we'll run out of oil in 30-50 years if we continue consumption at the current rates.
• Global interest in energy security and independence -- especially given the locations of the world's remaining oil reserves
• Cost savings
• Global mandates for clean/renewable energy and fuel efficiency
• And the environmental impact of current practices

Marco and Hank turned the conversation to Green I.T.  The first strategies many people think of are cloud computing and virtualization, though Marco pointed out that Green I.T. also means decreasing the hazardous materials in computer equipment, increasing energy efficiency and designing for recyclability and biodegradability.

Hank was quick to point out that though cloud computing is a green I.T. strategy because resources can be shared -- there are many social networks that are only available because of cloud computing that are tremendous energy hogs.  Facebook has 30,000 servers supporting its operations, the equivalent of five power plants.  In Hank's words, "every time you tweet, you kill a butterfly," which helps remind us all of the delicate balancing act between the habits of the modern day world and environmental stewardship.

On the topic of virtualization, Hank explained that there are five to six reasons to virtualize a data center or desktop -- only one of them is green; "virtualization is good I.T., and you essentially get the green for free."

The speakers agreed that a paradigm shift is necessary and inevitable, and that we'll see increased technology innovation over the next decade.  The cost savings are just too significant to ignore, which should keep everyone seeing green.

- Katie Hanusik

Photo 1: Speakers - Hank Dearden, Virsant; Bill Lyons, Seneca Creek Partners; Marco Luzuriaga of LimeLeap
Photo 2: Event Attendees - Royela Kim, Boscobel; Toni Townes-Whitley, Unisys and WIT President; Gina Pagliaro, Boscobel

LinkedIn for Personal Branding – Part 1

The WIT Sales & Marketing and Technology SIGs hosted a special member workshop last week on “Supersizing Your LinkedIn Profile: Using LinkedIn for Personal and Corporate Branding.”  Catherine Read  led the highly interactive, sold-out workshop where attendees were encouraged to bring their laptop so everyone could make real-time profile enhancements.

Catherine is a true-believer in LinkedIn, and apparently she’s not the only one. In October, LinkedIn announced that they’d hit the 50M mark. 

Her best ideas are below.  If available, I’ve linked to instructions for each of these tips.

1.     Confirm that you have only one profile and delete any duplicate accounts.  Apparently, this is quite common if you’re invited to connect using an email address that LinkedIn doesn’t recognize (one of my contacts has four accounts).  Next make sure all your email accounts are associated with your LinkedIn profile.

2.     Update your personal profile.  Consider a “vanity URL,” (mine is http://www.linkedin.com/in/katiehanusik)

and add the name of your Website and blogs. 

3.     Use the status updates to remind your contacts what you do for a living.  This is increasingly easy as LinkedIn recently announced a partnership with Twitter.

4.     Invite people to connect but never use the standard invitation.  Explain how you met and why you’re interested in connecting – or consider a more creative approach.  Offset the chance of rejection with some of these tips.

 

5.     Don’t accept an invitation without looking at the profile and sending a follow up email.    Presumably, the person that sent you the invitation is interested in connecting, not just adding your name to their giant rolodex of contacts.

6.     Build your recommendations. If you have hundreds of contacts, shouldn’t you be able to find at least one person that can say something nice about you?  And the best way to get recommendations?  Give them (especially to your boss).

We covered so much that it’s too much for one post.  Part II will be coming shortly and will cover Groups, Events and Applications.

-  Katie Hanusik

* Photo: Catherine Read (center) and from left Marge Niedzwicz (GWU), Krista Curtiss (HP), Debbie Moore and Janet Sifers (IBM).

Announcing GovEvents.com

SpeakerBox is proud to support GovEvents in the launch of their portal for government-related events. The site provides in-depth information on a wide variety of events, from major industry tradeshows, to government conferences, to agency-sponsored roundtables, and webcasts.

Like the Hair Club for Men pitchman, “I’m not only the PR rep, but also a client.” Searching for events for my clients to speak, sponsor, exhibit, and attend has meant visiting numerous sites and many times falling down the Google rabbit hole trying any and all combinations of search terms to uncover applicable events. GovEvents is a lifesaver in this respect. It can be the first stop in information gathering, providing a pretty comprehensive list of events on any (government-related) topic available. Event organizers can also upload their event for free – yet another channel to promote events big and small.

I’ve already started using it with great success and encourage all government marketers to give it a try, I think you’ll find that a lot of the pain in researching events has been alleviated.
-Piper Conrad

Recession-Busting Marketing

At this week's Women in Technology Sales and Marketing event, "Marketing in the New Economy," the panelists shared their best recession-busting marketing tips.  The presenters were Julie Sokley, McAfee; Jennifer Abernethy, The Sales Lounge and Matt White of White + Partners.  The panelists agreed that this has been a year of experimentation -- with Twitter, Facebook ads and events.

Julie at McAfee shared the details of their Executive Summit in Las Vegas, which is open to their most senior clients and prospects.  This year, the attendance list included about 10 VIPs that were unemployed.  Recognizing the value of these evangelists, McAfee rolled out the red carpet for them in spite of their employment status.  This strategy has already paid dividends with a big contract win.  Unfortunately for McAfee, Symantec's recession-busting strategy was to ride the coattails of McAfee's event; they wisely bought out all the signage in baggage claim at the Las Vegas airport during the McAfee event.

Matt White recommended that everyone continue to invest in marketing even during a downturn.  White + Partners clients, Luray Caverns, Wolftrap and a local Mercedes-Benz dealer are having record years.  In the case of Mercedes, they have had some success with a promotion offering disgruntled Redskins fans the opportunity to turn in their unused tickets for a discount off a new car.  Now that's something to cheer for.

Top photo: Event panelists: Matt White, White + Partners; Jennifer Abernethy, The Sales Lounge, Julie Sokley, McAfee; Traci Robinson-Williams, FedMatch


Bottom photo: WIT Marketing and Sales SIG Chairs: Sue Keith, ENC Marketing and Patricia Mejia, Siteworx

- Katie Hanusik

Following up on Twitter for Government

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at SpeakerBox's "Got Content? Get Government Customers" event. Turnout was fantastic, and the feedback has been great. If you weren't there, and wanted to catch up on some of the sessions, we have some recaps posted online.

My presentation focused on Twitter for Government, which, in truth, is quite similar to Twitter for Lawyers and many other industries. I kicked off my presentation with this quote from MarketingProf's Ann Handley, which I believe answers the "why Twitter matters" question as succinctly as any I've seen:

Twitter matters because of what it is: at its heart, a platform that offers an exchange of ideas and information on an unprecedented scale.

Earlier this year, Federal Computer Week's Doug Beizer wrote an encouraging look at how government agencies and officials at all levels were turning to social media - including Twitter - "revolutionize government business" and to network, collaborate and communicate like never before. The FCC has turned to Twitter and a new blog to promote a two-way conversation about the National Broadband Plan. The Environmental Protection Agency is using Twitter to extend its already impressive social media efforts. Several Federal CIOs and other high level government officials and influencers are on Twitter. And in a very recent and real-time example, the U.S. Army turned to Twitter to share information on the Fort Hood shootings. The list goes on, but you get the point.

And as the government has embraced social media, the community of publications, organizations, conferences and companies using Twitter to communicate with that audience has also grown. The evolution of sites like Steve Lunceford's GovTwit and Steve Ressler's GovLoop make this engagement easier and have really helped to unify the Gov 2.0 community.

If you're interested in B-to-G marketing and communications, how is your organization using social media to communicate with the government community?

-Stephanie

Twitterfor Gov

View more presentations from Katie Hanusik.

SpeakerBox Around Town: SECAF, WWPR and TiE-DC

 Event fatigue? No way! I felt like I was all over the beltway last week, in Arlington, Tysons Corner and Washington, DC attending events hosted by premiere associations. Thought I'd share a couple of highlights from three packed crowds:

TiE-DC welcomed Aneesh Chopra to the Top of The Town on Tuesday night, the 3rd of November. Wow, what a view! Both inside and out. TiE-DC has really hit its stride this year, thanks to hard work from President DP Venkatesh and President-elect Amir Hudda. 

It wouldn't be fitting to begin the night without Aneesh starting his remarks by reminiscing of the early TiE-DC, when it was known as the Indian CEO Council. "Those early events jumpstarted his career," he exclaimed, as he was able to rub shoulders with the technology elite of the late 1990s and take his career to the next level through the relationships he gained.

The next day brought me to the 20th Annual Washington Women in PR Woman of the Year Awards Luncheon, and I saw many friends among the crowd, and met some great new ones too. The keynote address was delivered by Dana Bash, correspondent from CNN, who even released some skinny on the Congressmen and women she covers on a daily basis. 

Congratulations to Sarah Temple, Senior Vice President of Social Marketing at Ogilve Public Relations Worldwide for winning this year's award! Your red dress campaign is terrific.


I then spent Thursday morning, November 5th, with SECAF, which is the Small and Emerging Contractor Advisory Forum boasting 200+ company members and one of the fastest growing associations in the region.  Over 100 people came to hear three Small Business Office Liaisons from the intelligence communities of NGA, NSA and DIA speak about how to do business with intelligence agencies. 

Referring to themselves as the "three musketeers" since they often travel together to evangelize what it's like to work with intelligence agencies, Sherry Baldwin, Director of Small Business Programs for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Sandra Broadnax, Director of Small Business Programs for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and Pamela Porter, Small Business Advocate and Director for the National Security Agency (NSA), all talked about how accessible their agencies are to small businesses, and what a great time it is to be a small business selling to government.  

A sign that SECAF is super hot: the event sold out after one email went out to the membership, and swiftly managed to secure a 100 person waiting list. Might have to move the venue next time?

Full disclosure: TiE-DC is a client of SpeakerBox and I serve on the board of SECAF, so I'm a little biased (and a lot proud) of the value these groups deliver to members.

- Elizabeth Shea

Seven Tips for Optimizing Content for Search

Tuesday’s SpeakerBox event, entitled “Got Content? Get Government Customers,” was a jam-packed workshop describing the intersection of public relations, social media, content marketing and search.

Blog posts on all the sessions will be coming soon. I’ll be describing the session led by Elizabeth Shea of SpeakerBox and Janet Driscoll Miller of Search Mojo.

1. According to Elizabeth and Janet, it all starts with keywords. A company’s website keywords should be reinforced in all content.

2. Quality inbound links are the most important ranking factor for Google. A great source for these links is content that is published on other sites. As Janet says, “Treat links like PR efforts. If you’d want press there, you’d want a link from there too.”

3. Blogs are a magnet for search engines, because search engines love frequently updated content. Make sure you’re hosting the blog on your own domain - and promote it like crazy. Interested in more tips to optimize your blog for search engines?

4. Look for opportunities to post articles and whitepapers written by your company on quality content aggregation sites or whitepaper directories (such as ZDNet’s free service)

5. Use images and videos to maximize SEO by using keywords in image titles, tags, anchor text and surrounding page text.

6. Janet reminded us not to forget Twitter. Twitter is important, not just for the traffic that it drives to Web sites but because MS Bing has launched a Twitter search site and Google will add this capability in the next few months.

7. Finally Elizabeth reminded us all that content is defined broadly and also includes items like blog comments and surveys. Content can also be a key contributor to inbound marketing strategies.

If you missed the workshop, the full presentation is available on SlideShare.

Hope to see you at the next SpeakerBox event.

-- Katie Hanusik

Photo Caption: Lisa Dezzutti, Market Connections; Janet Driscoll Miller, Search Mojo; Elizabeth Shea, SpeakerBox; Stephanie Stadler Wonderlick, SpeakerBox and Julia Lim, Wonderlick

Social Media Saturday with Peter Shankman

I make a semi-annual retreat to be with a group of my agency-owner peers in an organization called Innisbrook, where we share best practices on client services, employee development and the like. We just wrapped our most recent retreat in New York, NY, at our host agency’s company, DCI. (Thanks to Scott Mills for the cool video shoot of our week, and Mark Alison for his awesome photography of the event!)

We try to get notable speakers in to talk to us, and the Saturday, 8 am slot is hardest to fill. We usually have to arm twist and bribe anyone worthy to share that sacred time with us.

For this retreat, we were on the edge of our seats by 8:32 Saturday morning, when we were treated to a riveting, funny, informative and motivational discussion on the world of marketing and PR by the one and only Peter Shankman.

If you haven’t heard of Peter Shankman, and you’re in the PR/marketing business, I’d be surprised. If you haven’t heard of Peter, you most likely have heard of HARO: his entrepreneurial venture to Help A Reporter Out. Peter is an author, the founder of Geek Factory and the 100,000 member strong community of HARO.

His thrice-daily emails of HARO began as a labor of love (or a side-affect of his syndrome somewhat related to ADHD: ADOS (attention-deficit “oooh shiny….!”) for his friends in the editorial side of the business.

He speaks all over the world and his speaking fees could even rival David Meerman Scott. Here are some highlights of his conversation with us, as they were conveyed in their entirety by 10:30 am, certainly before most people back home had had their pancakes and coffee.

(For those who want to read the transcript of a similar speech made to the Affiliate Summit East 2009 conference, you can read the transcript, or download audio and video. Listening to his delivery is half the fun…)

If you’re reading this blog post, however, be sure to imagine a very active man who looks a decade less than his resume suggests, with a lot of flailing, gesticulating arms, and you can be right there with us for the experience.

So, here goes the highlights:

Peter Shankman is the epitome of high energy. His attitude on trying new things stemmed from the early days of AOL—he was such an early employee he was able to snag peter@aol.com. Since there were no rules, the only rule was to keep doing those things that worked, and don’t do the things that didn’t. Sounds obvious, huh?

As he segued from one topic to the next, he managed to plug his remarks into four primary buckets:

He looks to four reasons for the proliferation of social media, as well as the responsibilities of social media. While it’s not ubiquitous today, there will soon not be any distinction between “social media” and how we live our lives as humans.

1. Transparency

As he describes the landscape today: for the past 100 years or so, the country has been run by old, white men. When those old white men died, they replaced themselves with more old, white men. Zero transparency. In the past 10-15 years, in the years of everyone having a cell phone with a camera, citizen journalism, whistle blowers, etc., transparency became the norm. Our current administration ran their campaign on transparency. We’ll never go back, and now is the time to set those new parameters. Companies that don’t get this, and get this quickly, can’t possibly survive or succeed.

2. Relevance

The biggest point here is that most communicators have no excuse to forget, except for the fact that sometimes we choose to forget it! In a nutshell, Peter’s relevance refers to the ability to make sure you are delivering relevant help, support, content, solutions and ideas, to the people you want to help, support, cater to, in the manner in which they like to consume information.

As a case in point, Peter will tell you he doesn’t watch TV, but he listens to podcasts; doesn’t open attachments (“they are Al Qaeda to anyone without an attention span”), but has three flat screen TVs in his home to monitor his Twitter feed, CNN and Facebook. While he doesn’t read print newspapers, per se, you still can’t miss the mass of people in the morning NY subway system with a print newspaper of the day under their arms. So, newspapers aren’t dead, yet.

Everyone has his or her preference for consumption, learn it, and do it. And if you don’t know their preference? “Double Duh….why don’t you ask them?”

3. Brevity

Companies that survive will be the most succinct. Great writing will inspire in fewer than 140 characters.

4. Top of Mind

In an over stimulated world, the importance of connecting with people will never change. Peter told a great anecdote referencing Barry Diller the former head of Paramount, who steadfastly stuck to a routine practice of calling ten people from his rolodex every day. He connected on a regular basis with everyone who helped put Paramount on top during his time. Give, don’t just receive, and it pays in spades, was the lesson.

A few other nuggets to share before I sign off on this report - if you are intrigued by these points, listen to his speech:

- Social media is like the next generation of lava lamps

- Social media is more about listening, the ultimate customer service

- Peter is a raving fan of Southwest, Omni Hotels, and Poken. Find out why.

- Our job as PR/marketing folks is to make our client's customers do the PR and marketing for them. Create raving fans. Social media enables those conversations.

- Elizabeth Shea

AlwaysOn Comes to DC

I attended this week’s well-done OnDC event, sponsored by AlwaysOn. Though attendance was limited, it was a good start for a first-time event. The sessions I participated in addressed the cross-section of policy, innovation, entrepreneurship, technology and government.

Highlights for me included:

• Thoughtful discussions on green IT, Net Neutrality and the Recovery Act.
• Hearing Robin Roy of energy-efficient window-manufacturer, Serious Materials, declare his company’s support for transparency (no one laughed)
• Meeting the former CTO of the CIA

All in all, it was a great day. I'm looking forward to next year’s event.

- Katie Hanusik

AlwaysOn is coming to DC

2009 is the inaugural year for OnDC – a conference that highlights the significant economic, political, and commercial trends affecting global innovation – running from October 19th – 21st. With a goal of identifying the most promising entrepreneurial opportunities and investments, and uncovering how to best capitalize on government initiatives, OnDC focuses on the sectors most impacted by the federal government including greentech, on-demand computing and IT security, education, and the life sciences.

As an added bonus, this year, Brian Jones, Senior Counsel focusing on postsecondary education at Dow Lohnes (a SBX client) will be presenting on a panel entitled “Next Generation Education” with moderator Jay Matthews of the Washington Post. Other panelists include: Jeff Shelstad, CEO, Flat World Knowledge, Jose Ferreira, CEO, Knewton, Inc. and Saad Khan, Partner, CMEA Ventures. They will discuss new technologies that empower educators and walk the line between traditional teaching methods and new IT driven teaching tools. Their panel is on Tuesday October 20th at 5:00pm.

Hope to see you there…

-Ali Smith

Rumors Were Flying

I attended last week’s Government Communicator event hosted by Vocus and Capitol Communicator. The panelists were four senior communicators with extensive experience in the public sector.

The latter half of the discussion focused on the government agencies’ use of social media. All of the panelists agreed that social media is a necessary part of the public affairs job for all the usual reasons. However, the need to respond to false information that spreads quickly online often has bigger consequences for many government agencies.

Case in point, John Verrico, Science & Technology Spokesman, Department of Homeland Security, told a great story about a fraudulent rumor started last year that TSA was pursuing the purchase of safety bracelets that would be worn by all airline passengers. The bracelets would link passengers with their bags, and track passengers through security and onto the plane. The bracelets would offer the added bonus of allowing the stewardess to electronically shock the wearer (with the power of a Taser) should they become a security risk. The story was picked up by the Washington Times blog and FoxNews before it could be squashed by DHS and TSA.

These situations can quickly become out of hand, especially as mainstream media is increasingly willing to run stories that they admit are unsubstantiated in an effort to avoid being scooped.

While he did not have the opportunity to diffuse the story ahead of time, Mr. Verrico’s blog response allowed him to address it as quickly as possible (and with a slight touch of humor – love the title) that gave him the upper hand in the situation.

- Katie Hanusik

Recap of Women in Technology’s First TechExpo!

The 1,000-member strong Women in Technology organization held its first annual Tech Expo last week, with nearly 20 exhibitors and a stellar panel made up of moderator Paul Sherman, publisher of Potomac Techwire, Matt Howard, founder and CEO of Zoomsafer, Julia Spicer, Executive Director for Mid-Atlantic Venture Association (MAVA), Janet Yang, Principal at NovakBiddle, and Dede Haskins, founder and CEO of NewVision Health.

The goal for the TechExpo was to demonstrate the vibrant entrepreneurial community here in DC, and to take a look at the business climate for emerging technologies and funding opportunities.

After listening to the panel, Paul announced two winners for the evening who were selected via attendees casting their ballots. Taking home prizes were NewVision Health for Best in Show, and CYNCZ for Most Innovative. Check them out!

I jotted down some of my favorite themes by the panelists, which aren’t word for word, so full disclosure that I’m mostly going to pass along just the tip of the iceberg of their remarks:

Janet:
- Seeing a trend already toward less “panic” in the market – customers are getting back to work and her portfolio companies are seeing sales start to happen.
- If based in DC, don’t discount the advantage you have as an entrepreneur to leverage your DC footprint. There is quite a bit of opportunity in our back yard that only we can claim at this juncture. Don’t overlook it.
- On areas/trends to watch: educational IT. Look at all the offshoots of Blackboard.com in this region, and combine it with educational reform, stimulus dollars, and it’s going to be an area to watch.

Matt:
- Seeing that sales cycles are shortening…still slow, but it’s not as drawn out as it has been in recent months
- Watch web 3.0 – it’s here and will sweep into business.
- The opportunity to bring a new technology to market has never been greater, with the low barrier to entry and low capital requirements to launch a product. That being said, it’s never been more important to be quick to market, because of these same things.
- When asked about typical time to market expectations: for Zoomsafer, it was 3-4 months to get to beta. For something like an iPhone app, we’re talking weeks.

Dede:

- My favorite quote from her was in discussing financing startups: “be well off!” Elicited many laughs, and yet, she’s half serious. Angel investors are hard to find, and often have their own challenges in that the market often affected their own coffers. “If not well off, be frugal, focus on smart expenses, and execute.”
- On women in technology: we all have a responsibility to be thoughtful about how girls and young women need continual support and opportunity to be exposed to math, science, engineering, and technology.
- Health IT will continue to be an area to watch, not only because of the healthcare reform discussion, but because of other issues like the nursing shortage, health consumerism, etc.

Julia:
- On companies seeking financing: foresees new “models” for investors to help create capital for companies. Seeing new creative ways to structure deals. Be open minded.
- On the topic of those entering the workforce today, particularly young women: there isn’t a better place for anyone to swiftly learn about business than at a technology company. Particularly a startup.
- Companies launching in this marketplace have a distinct advantage that talented people are available, companies will be able to secure rock bottom office space lease rates, and there is a wonderful opportunity to capture marketshare if one is focused and nimble.
- Keep in mind the folks who hold VCs accountable, if you are seeking money. They have their investors who expect returns, and hold them accountable to those returns.

And my favorite quote of the evening, near the end, was on the topic of the current landscape for an entrepreneur who might be thinking about making the leap to launch a business:

From Julia:
“If you’re currently employed today, your job is most likely not nearly as fun as it was two years ago. Chances are you are working harder, for less money, wearing more hats, and doing all you can to stay upbeat. Well, that’s what every day is like as an entrepreneur, so why not take the leap?”

Already looking forward to next year!

Elizabeth Shea

Lisa’s Big Week

Lisa Throckmorton will be the woman about town this week with two speaking engagements.

First on Wednesday, June 17 she will participate on a panel hosted by Arlington Economic Development discussing the shifting landscape for communications and social media best practices. Lisa will be joined by Jeffrey Levy, Director of Web Communications, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

On Friday, June 19 Lisa will lead a session entitled “Facebook 101” for the Friendship Heights Village Center. This session is part of the community’s Tea and Talk program. Cokie Roberts is also speaking at the Village Center this week and at last check she and Lisa were neck and neck in terms of number of people registered.

-Piper Conrad

Get Content. Get Customers.

Only one week until the next SpeakerBox event featuring Joe Pulizzi, author of Get Content. Get Customers.

Joe’s book was reviewed by Doug Davidoff in this month’s issue of Smart CEO on page 17.

Doug’s review sums up the value of content marketing, “Here’s your challenge: Your competitors have answers that are very similar to yours. So, how are your best potential customers – and even your current customers – supposed to be able to tell that you are a better alternative than your competitors? According to Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett, authors of Get Content Get Customers …, the answer is content.”

Event details and registration information can be found here. All registrants will receive a copy of Joe’s book, Get Content. Get Customers. Hope to see you there.

-- Katie Hanusik

Summit Series Recap: Day Two

Friday’s Summit Series was exhausting yet exhilarating. So many spectacular people! 115 young entrepreneurs under the age of 35 gathered in one resort in Aspen, Colorado. This included four social entrepreneurs – young leaders of very successful non-profit organizations. They each served on a panel talking about their missions, and participated in an interactive session where they were able to benefit from audience perspective on how they can be more effective in spreading the word about their respective causes.

Lauren Bush: 25 years old and niece of George W. Bush, together with Ellen Maura Gustafson, co-founded the FEED Projects, which in its first year, raised $4.5M, enough to fund the school-feeding program in Rwanda for the entire year! Beautiful, kind, and a very articulate speaker, Lauren went up against all odds to bring her sustainable FEED bags to Whole Foods Market.

Ethan Zohn: a great, funny speaker – we had walked around town earlier in the day, and he talked about what inspired him to get involved in AIDS/HIV testing and awareness. After he spent time in Africa for the TV show Survivor: Africa (and winning the million dollars), he said he saw first hand how HIV/AIDS affected the region, and decided to incorporate a passion of his into a campaign to educate and evangelize. As a former professional soccer player, he launched the concept of Grassroot Soccer to help spread the word.

Bobby Bailey and Ben Keesey spoke about Invisible Children and its efforts to bring to light the longest running war in Africa. The guerilla movement by northern Ugandan Joseph Kony involves numerous accounts of abductions (1.4M estimated) of children as young as 8 years old who are forced into military service for his army. Bobby is a filmmaker, and uses his talents to express his outrage and shed light on the human rights violations that are taking place. April 25, 2009 is the date of their next big demonstration to help build awarness.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) will be Elizabeth Gore of the UN Foundation and the Nothing But Nets campaign – it was her idea, along with Elliott Bisnow, founder of Summit Series, to pull together this impressive panel. Stay tuned…

Other great attendees I had the pleasure to get to know better include:

Owen Cook: 29, CEO and co-founder of Real Social Dynamics was a hoot – he got altitude sickness his first day here and was spotted thereafter inhaling oxygen from the micro-canister you can buy in your room. His co-founder Nicholas Kho was there too – an Ironman triathelete – and they both talked me through the benefits of alcohol-free living. Their company helps guys figure out how to “attract women”--no kidding--and Owen is known for being, in his own words, quite the pickup artist. He still manages to teach courses every weekend! Very charming.

Barry Silbert: CEO and founder of SecondMarket was the fourth or fifth former Wall Streeter-turned entrepreneur that I met this weekend. Barry has a brilliant business model, and he’s incredibly bright and unassuming. After spending time on Wall Street as an investment banker, he saw a growing need for companies and markets with distressed assets - a common topic these days. He helps bring them together with folks who want to buy. His company now boasts an impressive management team, 100+ employees, fast growth, and new sectors opening up every few months. He’s young, driven, and very easygoing. I am in awe...

Jessica Scorpio: arriving in on Saturday like a breath of fresh Canadian air, Jessica inspired me by how much she has accomplished in such a short time! When she was 18 she founded a leadership network for Canadian entrepreneurs called IDEAL, which brings together young talent with recognized leaders in their field in a matchmaking sort of venue. It’s a great way for the different generations to learn from one another, and participate in her social networking site www.idealmesh.com. Now at 21 years of age, she holds a full-time job supporting the Prime Minister of Canada, and just happened to make time to freelance and launch Canadian company Gazaro at DEMO this year. She told me she can only keep up by working 20 hours a day. Wow. Wonder what her 22nd year will bring?

Brian Smith: Principal at In-Q-Tel: As an strategic investor, Brian sees many kinds of technologies and startups. Brian is a great guy, and seems to love his job even though he travels quite a bit to the west coast. In a small world story, Brian shared that he knows my SpeakerBox co-founder Kristi Hedges, and her husband Mike Graninger, also at In-Q-Tel, really well! It sounds like things are going great for him, and he also gave a shout out for SpeakerBox friend Carahsoft, who holds some of the GSA schedules for In-Q-Tel portfolio companies.

Alexis Jones: wow, what a bundle of energy! This woman is amazing. She is the founder of I Am That Girl, which is a non-profit entity dedicated to the empowerment of girls. “Smart is Sexy” and “Death to the Comotose Barbie” are mantras of hers. She conducts leadership courses, empowerment groups, and creates an online magazine for Gen Y women and girls. She can add professional model, Survivor contestant, Masters degree recipient, and co-creator of a new television series entitled "I Am That Girl" to her bio. She is producing a new series with her great friend Bryce Dallas Howard, also in attendance at Summit. Bryce was delightful, almost shy, and demure in a wonderful inauspicious way; it’s no secret I’m a huge fan of her work in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and Lady in the Water. Her support for the I Am That Girl movement will help put them on the map. Just see her endorsement! A little anecdote here: when Alexis told her agent she wanted to pursue her Masters' degree, and thus, would be leaving a lucrative modeling career, he told her, "that's a good waste of pretty." Come on! Smart is Sexy, Alexis! Go girl.

A special mention of three sponsors that were in attendance that were awesome: Steve Burman, our realtor from Jones Lang LaSalle, who was great to spend time with and get to know better. This is his 2nd or 3rd Summit Series - he's known Elliott Bisnow for years. It's thanks to him that I was introduced to Summit Series. Glad you are my commercial real estate guy! For any of you out there that needs a smart agent...

James Bogart from RBC Wealth Management, who at 21 has a sense of goal-setting and ambition like I've never seen! He's terrific. I hope he earns his watch.

And the monster of all sponsors, Staples, who brought us Bill Peterson, who was super enjoyable, especially when he opted to stay out late. He paid for dinner for 125 folks, left great jackets and treats in the room, and whooped it up when Michigan won Saturday night. I love ya Bill.

It's been great getting to know such great people!

- Elizabeth Shea