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Geeks On A Plane Takeoff for [re]think Hawaii

by Miiko Mentz on November 1, 2009

Geeks on a Plane (GOAP) are at it again and this time they’re off to Hawaii for a week of fun in the sun and great talks and networking around technology, business, sustainability and life. The GOAP team and friends are part of [re]think Hawaii, which starts today and runs through November 5.

[re]think Hawaii is a week of events that is bringing together an international group of people — who might not otherwise meet — to rethink technology, business and sustainability. One of those events is Share Your Table’s Farm to Table Lunch that’s an invite-only luncheon of green, tech and business leaders who will feast on a lunch that’s 100 percent sourced from Hawaii, which is quite impressive given 85 percent of Hawaii’s food is imported. Sustainability is a critical issue that affects all of us, and I hope that [re]think Hawaii helps raise awareness not only in Hawaii’s own efforts to support its sustainability, but also globally.

[re]think Hawaii participants will attend a host of other events this week from Venture Capital Secrets and Startonomics Hawaii to BlogWorld’s Social Media Business Summit and the What They Don’t Teach You At Business School workshop that will be given by Duck9 CEO and Businessweek Blogger Larry Chiang (@larryChiang). Larry is also a guest writer at Bubblicious.

One lucky [re]think Hawaii participant is Mugasha CEO and Co-founder Akshay Dodeja (@dodeja) who we caught up with recently at the TechCrunch50 conference. Akshay was the lucky winner of the Girls in Tech [re]think Hawaii raffle giveaway that was conducted during TC50. Proceeds from the raffle went to Girls Inc., an organization celebrating girlhood and inspiring and supporting young girls to become tomorrow’s leaders.

Check out our interview with Adriana Gascoigne (@afgascoigne), GOAP co-organizer and Girls in Tech founder, talking about Girls in Tech, Girls Inc., GOAP and [re]think Hawaii; and at the end of the video we captured a few comments from lucky winner Akshay.

GOAP organizers are Dave McClure (@davemcclure) of Founders Fund and Startup2Startup, Brady Forrest (@brady) of O’Reilly, Adriana Gascoigne of SGN and Girls in Tech (GIT), and many others. Dave McClure, Larry Chiang, and Flowtown Co-founder Dan Martell (@danmartell) are the hosts of GOAP Hawaii. And [re]think Hawaii is organized by Christine Lu (@christinelu) and a unique group of people from around the world.

#rethink #GOAP

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10 Places to Cut a San Francisco Business Deal

by Marissa Louie on September 22, 2009

By Marissa Louie

Ok my fellow Young Grasshoppers, we need to fly. Let’s close deals, chomp on some revenue, and raise cold hard liquid cash. My Dot2Dot family and my NYC Nerdsters, I can be your connection to Silicon Valley who will get you in with the right people. But to actually cut the deal in SF, you need the right venue, with the right mixture of old school (for historical context), understated class, and worldliness (so you can think about the possibilities outside of the room). The point is to focus on the people at the table, the deal, and your future partnership together. Just be strategic about your bathroom breaks and watch your toes. Here’s where I’ve cut deals from $1000 to $24m.

Marissa Louie and Nalin Mittal, by David Gelles of Financial Times

Marissa Louie and Nalin Mittal at Cafe de la Presse, by David Gelles of Financial Times

These work for me:

Seasons Four Seasons

I always get deals done here. I got my biggest deal done here.

Carnelian Room

Ask for longtime General Manager Philip Ip and tell him I sent you. He pays 100% attention to detail and knows exactly what to do.

Hyatt Regency

Before you go, take a ride in the speed elevator while you watch everything beneath you shrink. Now take that soaring feeling straight into your meeting.

NOPA

It’s best to come late at night with a cheery spirit and with no intention of cutting a deal.

Masa’s

Do your deal in a hushed voice. And wear something conservative unless you want men gawking at you during your deal.

Café de la Presse

This is the social media, PR, and communications hub of SF, so cut your deals related to those arenas here. According to superstars @dgelles, @nalin, @rafer, @dayo, @dipw0nder, and more.

The Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton

Bring your East Coast colleagues here.

Kokkari

I took control of a client dinner where everyone was twice my age by talking about how consulting executives cannot sell, even though 90% of top executives have a background in sales. We got the deal, celebrated, and then I bumped into Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown on my way out.

The Palace Hotel

It’s where you make history.

Sugar Cafe

It’s where my company, AD-Village, was born. I’ve taken that energy into cutting multiple deals, and have been a loyal customer for 2 years.

You’d think these would work, but they don’t for me:

They’re great dining places, but for me, the settings are uncomfortable, the people tend to stare rudely, or the waitstaff is stiff and awkward. The chi is just not right.

The NYC version is on its way!

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Marissa is the CEO and Co-founder of AD-Village. On the job, she handles, sales, PR, customer service, community relations, marketing, speaking at conferences, strategy, recruiting, coding, text messaging, Twittering, and returning calls and emails.

She is a frequent conference speaker and will make a keynote speech or presentation at Web 2.0 Expo New York, Wharton West Entrepreneur Club, LeadsCon Las Vegas, and the Mobile Marketing Summit.

Marissa blogs at BusinessWeek, Adotas, and here at Bub.blicio.us.

Find her on Twitter: @malouie

Contact her at (510) 375-1941 or Email her at marissa@ad-village.com.

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Back to School: Twitter 101 for Businesses

by Brian Solis on July 24, 2009

Sourced from PR 2.0

Twitter rolled out a friendly and instructional 101 series designed to help users create a strategic and effective presence as well as spark and foster a collaborative community in the ever-maturing Twitterverse. Additionally, for those marketers, brand managers, communications professionals, and new media consultants who have painfully and exhaustively attempted to explain Twitter and its benefits to executives, co-workers, or clients, this guide is your saving grace and for some, their golden ticket.

Co-Founder Biz Stone explained the rationale behind the creation of the guide, “Many are seeing a wide variety of businesses using Twitter in interesting ways to create value for customers and consumers. As a result, we’re often invited by businesses and organizations to talk about Twitter and how it can be used to better engage with customers. The results demonstrate how customers are getting value out of Twitter and suggest techniques businesses can employ to enhance that value.”

He continued, “Twitter 101 is a suite of web pages that explains our findings. There is also a downloadable slideshow available as a PDF that’s more of an overview which folks can use to give presentations within larger organizations to teach others about Twitter. We’re focused on enhancing value across Twitter in general—these documents are just a first step.”

Its format is deceptively simple, but packed with valuable information that bridges functionality and potential with instruction and comprehensive examples that span a variety of businesses and marketplaces. What’s constant, though, is Twitter’s desire to help you, and also help you, help others.

The guide covers:

This business survival guide provides a comprehensive overview, and quick tips along the way, that provide just enough data to pass the baton to you in order to apply and connect what you’ve learned to your business – triggering creative ideas to change the ingredients to make it more appropriate for you.

Twitter 101 is available as a post, slide show, or printable document here.

Instead of approaching Twitter as a place to broadcast information about your company, think of it as a place to build relationships.

Also, please read: Make Tweet Love, Top Tips for Building Relationships on Twitter.

Connect with me on:

Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, or Facebook

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Now available! (click to purchase):

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ad:tech SF — The State of the Industry (Highlights)

by Marissa Louie on April 27, 2009

The State of the Industry Panel at ad:tech San Francisco

L to R: Randall Rothenberg, Rishad Tobaccowala, Carol Kruse, Neil Ashe, Jeff Berman

ad:tech San Francisco drew over 12,000 attendees last week and had a well-documented events and party calendar on the ad:tech blog thanks to Steve Hall.

The State of the Industry Panel (presented by the IAB) was the best keynote of ad:tech San Francisco in my opinion:

It was informative, though-provoking, entertaining, and filled with quotable quotes. Most of all, the speakers were made comfortable by the personable moderator, Randall Rothenberg.

See below for highlights.

Moderated by:

Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau

Panelists:

Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo Group and ad:tech Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
Neil Ashe, President of CBS Interactive
Carol Kruse, VP Global Interactive Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company
Jeff Berman, President of Sales and Marketing, MySpace

adtech-state-of-the-industry-3-pre-show-sf-09

The room started out empty. Within minutes, hundreds of attendees were seated.

Randall Rothenberg: Where are your companies investing in advertising?

Summarized answers from the panelists:

Asia (Kruse)
All digital properties (Ashe, Tobaccowala)
All online media, especially search (testing brand vs. direct response)
A focus on mobile
We want to focus on understanding the whole person through using behavioral predictive analytics (Berman)

Rothenberg: What is the value and contribution of social media? Is it just PR hype or something else — a hybrid?

Summarized answers: Old models don’t make sense any more. Social media is not campaign based, but requires ongoing communication. The media objective of the past was about where to put advertising – now it’s find where the audience sticks.

Rothenberg: Can Social Media be a part of a media plan – or is it rather “communications planning” or “influence planning”?

Summarized answers: Social Media can’t be planned by campaign or by quarter. It must be an ongoing plan. It has to be authentic, and it has to talk about what’s great, fresh, and trusted. It’s not a media strategy – it’s a service strategy, customer service, and product strategy; it’s branding, not media.

Rothenberg: How does an agency incorporate Social Media then?

Summarized answers: You have to consider “non-working media” versus “working media”. What works and what doesn’t? Agencies have to start by being agnostic. They should have fewer campaigns, and reach more ecosytems. Take a “great creative idea” and take it across all media. There is no way to coordinate accross multiple agencies. The consumer is driving changes so fast that we’re all running to keep up. The Chief Knowledge Officer will be sitting in the position of power.

Rothenberg: Have we boxed ourselves into direct response? Or is there room for creativity or branding?

Summarized answers: Direct response metrics saddle us with a burden. One recurring theme heard often over the past day (at ad:tech) is that it’s all going to become one — both branding and direct response. The focus on metrics was in order to get budgets approved. When it comes to building brand awareness, “nothing compares to television” for Coca-Cola.

Rothenberg: How much does creativity matter, compared to metrics?

Summarized answers: Creativity will matter even more. Creativity is not just pictures. Google search is getting more and more creative. Has the definition of “the great idea” changed? Or is the palette just larger now? The end-user or consumer will make the great decision. They will have more decision making power. People choose with their hearts and use numbers to justify what they just did.

Rothenberg: Is content or channels more important?

Summarized answers: Tobaccowala said, “The hysteria of insecurity is now driving the industry.” The point is not which channels to use, but what content to put in the channels.

adtech-state-of-the-industry-2-drew-ianni-sf-09

Conference Chair Drew Ianni wraps it up

ad:tech San Francisco also had great keynotes featuring:

Jimmy Wales, CEO of Wikipedia
Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu
Steve Hayden, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Worldwide
Pete Blackshaw, Executive VP of Digital Strategic Services at Nielsen Online
John Travis, VP of Branding, Adobe
Eric Feng, SVP of Audience and CTO, Hulu
Tina Sharkey, Chairman and Global President, BabyCenter
Joel Rubinson, Chief Research Officer, The Advertising Research Foundation

Thank-you to all of the conference organizers, notably Don Knox, Drew Ianni, Jeff Valentine, and Warren Pickett.

Marissa is the CEO and Co-founder of AD-Village.

Marissa also blogs at marissalouie.com and the BusinessWeek blog “Young Female Entrepreneur“.

Find her on Twitter: @malouie

Contact her at (510) 375-1941 or Email her at marissa@ad-village.com.

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Startonomics Sends Startups Back to School

by Brian Solis on February 7, 2009

words and pictures by Brian Solis

The dynamic team over at Dealmaker Media hosted Startonomics LA, a one-day workshop designed by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs on how to create simple, actionable metrics; and how to use them to make better product and marketing decisions for long-term growth and startup success.

Emceed by Jason Nazar of Docstoc (who is an amazing speaker), Startonomics literally sent startups back to school. The event was hosted at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business and attracted entrepreneurs from all over the country to learn and share experiences, strategies, and tactics to cultivate companies from conception to profitability to even acquisition.

“The difference between startups in San Francisco and LA is that we are driven by making money AND innovating,” exclaimed Nazar. And the discussions throughout the day supported that definition. They were incredibly valuable.

I spent the the entire day in “my office.”

I was one of three service providers participating in “Office Hours,” a very special series of segments during the day-long conference. My job was to help startups understand the new world of marketing and PR to both determine strategies and tactics for DIY programs and also learn how to better manage, guide and measure internal and external resources as they grow.

The after party was hosted at The W Westwood by Media Temple.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…