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Conferences

SnapSummit: FailCon’s Lessons Learned

by julieblaustein on October 31, 2009

Max Levchin of Slide Speaks of his Failures

SnapSummit: FailCon was held at the popular Kabuki Hotel this week. I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical when I learned there was going to be an entire conference devoted to the failure of one’s company. Instead, SnapSummit: FailCon not only succeeded in bringing in otherwise successful founders and entrepreneurs such as Pay Pal’s co-founder and now CEO & Founder of Slide, Max Levchin to talk about their failures, but it also packed the house with over 340 attendees.

What motivated folks to attend such a conference? Shalyn Hockey, VP of Operations at Assetmap is fresh out of Northwestern University. She attended the conference mainly to better understand what will actually work for a start up – the best business models, the infrastructure and to get ideas so that she won’t fail. After the conference I had a chance to catch up with her regarding her thoughts about the conference:

As a young, fresh off-the-boat entrepreneur, there was clear value in listening to 25 seasoned entrepreneurs bravely share their experiences of failures. It was useful to hear how people made failure work for them, but more importantly I appreciated how FailCon showed something beyond how to turn failure into success…although there is clearly a huge amount of grey area determining what ideas will be successes and failures, in part failure can be more predictable than success. It’s just a matter of knowing the variables.

Speakers were open and transparent when sharing their lessons learned. Eric Marcoullier, Formerly of MyBloglog and now Co-Founder & CEO of Gnip shared his harrowing saga of the almost failure of his company. When he recognized that his start up was going to fail due to infrastructure issues, he told his VC’s that he needed to quit but then quickly came back with a solution. He had to start over and to do so he had to fire 7 of his 12 employees and had to start over practically from scratch. I hope all VC’s are so understanding.

It was a great agenda with a mix of speakers including Founders such as Meebo’s Seth Sternberg & Sandy Jen, Developer’s Dave McClure 0f 5000 Hats and Kevin Barenblatt of Context Optional and VC’s Christine Herron of First Round Capital and David Hornik of August Capital. Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga had the room in stitches with his story about his first investors – BestBuy and Target credit cards. The demo room had about 12 vendors that were busy with traffic throughout the day – not always the case at conferences. I spoke with Gleb Budman, CEO & Founder of BackBlaze, a product that will back up your entire computer before its needed such as if coffee suddenly spills on it. They provide over 3 PB (1 petabyte is equal to a thousand terabytes). To put it in perspective, Facebook uses about 1/2 a PB for all of the pictures on their site. Gleb found the companies present at FailCon to be perfect for the type of product he sells and it was apparent by the traffic at his booth. Cassie Phillips, producer of the conference should be recognized for running with the idea of FailCon despite hitting some major objections especially with Sponsors who questioned being associated with “failure.” There is additional great press about the conference. Also, check out more buzz about the conference on its Twitter #FAILCON page.

Pictures from SnapSummit: FailCon by Julie Blaustein

Cassie Phillips, Producer of FailCon

Lynn Johnson of Fast Company Providing Opening Remarks

Seth Sternberg & Sandy Jen: Founders of Meebo

Christine Herron of First Round Capital and David Hornik of August Capital

Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga

Eric Marcoullier, CEO and Founder of Gnip

How NOT to Build Social Apps

Shalyn Hockey of AssetMap Seeks to Avoid Failure

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Digital Media Conference West

by julieblaustein on October 31, 2009

By Julie Blaustein

Jay Adelson of Digg and Mike Vorhaus of Magid Advisors

Digital Media Conference West, a one day conference held at the Kabuki Hotel in San Francisco, focused on a wide range of topics including online video, social media, investments, online advertising, mobile entertainment, mobile apps, the future of news media and the relationship between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. There were also a number of well known digital media leaders there to speak including Jay Adelson of Digg and Craig Newmark of Craig’s List along with other great speakers from the industry.

Bill Trancer of Hitwise and Nick Veronis of Veronis Suhler Stevenson kicked off the conference with their view of the trends of the Internet. Bill’s trends can be found in his book Click: What Millions of People are Doing and Why it Matters along with his blog I Love Data which he gave a few shout-outs about. His post about the competition of Twitter vs Facebook provides a clear analysis of the trends, spelling out his observation that Facebook, with its 6% of all U.S. Internet visits, is not threatened by Twitter. Nick Veronis spoke of ad spending trends where $210 billion is allocated to digital advertising, search is huge and growing with over $11 billion while classified spending has been reduced by 50% most likely due to competition with free services such as Craig’s List. The main problem according to Nick Veronis is, “Distribution used to be the issue, now its gaining the attention of users”

It was like hanging out in a cafe during Jay Adelson of Digg’s talk with Mike Vorhaus of Magid Advisors, a research-based strategic consulting firm (founded in 1957!). Jay shared amusing incidents such as when he was hailed back west from NYC to return to the Digg helm and his biggest concern was the transportation of his daughter’s Gecko. He “twittered” for information inquiring how does one transport a Gecko and was blown away by the amount of knowledge his followers shared with him about Geckos – a testament to the power of Twitter. His first hire was a coder from eLance who turned into a full timer. Digg would have been Dig if Disney didn’t already own it. He isn’t thrilled with the depiction of him as despising VC’s as detailed in an entire chapter on him called Fuck the Sweater Vests by Sarah Lacy in Once Your Lucky, Twice Your Good. He does prefer Angel funding. Digg is hiring and allows dogs, even parakeets in the office. And he shared “secrets” including that Digg is releasing new features in a week and focusing on verticals, content types and also on multiple levels of promotions.

Chuck Fishman of Cisco and Craig Newmark of Craig's List

The agenda was packed with great content yet it seemed to always come back to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace in each and every conversation. Lunch was served along with a chat from Craig Newmark who still goes by his title of Customer and Service Rep from 12 years ago when he first started the site. He was candid, honest and a delight to listen to even though folks were having lunch while he spoke. His main concern is about information not being shared. He is so concerned that he gave out his Twitter, Facebook and even his email address to all, suggesting they contact him in the afternoons when he isn’t dealing with spam. Great information was shared during the conference by the speakers and through the Twitter hashtag #DMCW that was displayed front and center on the big screen on stage with the speakers. Attendees at the conference and off-site kept the live stream fresh. What were they sharing? They shared when they arrived for the “party.” They promoted their speaking engagements coming up. They shared who they were looking forward to hearing speak. They provided links to information such as the Pew Study on Twitter Users tweeted by @nedsherman. They gave a play-by-play of who is speaking and about what. And they promoted themselves.

Check out more about the Digital Media Conference West and Buzz on its Twitter Feed at #DMCW

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Adventures at BlogHer Food

by Michelle Lentz on September 28, 2009

I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at the first annual BlogHer Food. For those of you who remember my BlogHer ‘09 posts from July, you might be surprised I so willingly attended. I was surprised myself, but curiosity got the better of me, and I’m glad it did.

Continuing the motif, I was also surprised that I enjoyed myself so thoroughly. I had intended on staying through my session, which was before lunch, and then heading out to explore San Francisco. I ended up remaining at the conference for the entire day. I found the sessions, while geared towards recipe-oriented food bloggers, were still relevant for review and wine blogs as well. The whole attitude of the day was different from what I expected, and I was thrilled. It was the perfect size (I believe it was around 300 people) and the programming struck just the right note.

My panel focused on blogging best practices. Not only was I on a panel with an impressive group of women, we actually talked about blogging. It was refreshing. I also attended a session on photography basics, as well as a fantastic session on protecting your work and copyright. I learned something in every session I attended. I’m a terrible conference attendee, and often my attention easily wanders, so BlogHer Food’s programming impressed me.

In fact, the only complaint I heard from anyone (myself included) was about the lunch. It was a hyper Rocco diSpirito and Bertolli. Yep, they served a bunch of food bloggers thawed Bertolli. This isn’t a food blog, but when the people at the table are complaining that the ravioli alfredo was more reminiscent of biscuits and gravy, you know there’s a problem.

Perhaps it was because we were all coalescing around a common topic – the love of food and wine – but I found the entire environment to be a lot more friendly than my previous BlogHer experiences. I hunted down folks I knew, people I hadn’t seen in a long time, and even met several impressive authors who were more than friendly. I gladly attended a party in the evening, looking forward to seeing some people again. I discovered that food bloggers are food bloggers, no matter their genre. Recipe bloggers were interested in hearing from review bloggers (and wine bloggers!) and I was interested to talk to the recipe folks. It was just such a different experience – for me – than the larger BlogHer conference I attended in July.

Finally, while there was swag, it was both excellent and controlled. I believe there were only five sponsors in the expo/demo area (Healthy Choice, Campbell’s, Pur, Cuisinart, and Pillsbury) as well as the Bertolli lunch and the California Milk-sponsored breakfast. I have no complaints with the goodies with which I came home. The organization even set up an easy and obvious area to donate unwanted foodstuffs from the goodie bags to a local shelter.

Even if I don’t speak next year, I’ll gladly return to BlogHer Food. Among other things, it was just great to be in a room with other people who all whip out their cameras to take a photo of their food. Camaraderie wins every time.

Update: Live blogs from the sessions are now available.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

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My BlogHer Experience Part 2: Buried Tech

by Michelle Lentz on July 29, 2009

BlogHer, in my mind, was going to be a blogging conference – a conference about blogging. Because we were all bloggers, and therefore not tech newbies, I expected a little more emphasis on the technology that makes it all work. A little more social media, a little more blogging, and a little less recipe sharing and parenting.

I attended several sessions and I spoke on a panel and well, BlogHer was chock full of surprises for me.

I was really interested in some of the Geek Lab sessions, and sad to find they were only 30 minutes each. Not only that, there were multiple GeekLab sessions running at the same time, in the same room, which was divided into giant cubicles. I had the experience of attending sessions led by one sweet girl who had no projection to her voice at all. That means that although I was in GeekLab session A, I was hearing GeekLab session B in the next cubicle, taught by someone with no fear of projecting her voice. For a blogging conference, I was sort baffled that this is how the tech would be treated.

The one exception to this was a good panel on Advanced SEO & Stats. Why this one session was led in a full conference room and the others were not, well, I don’t know.

The Tech vendors, such as Microsoft Bing, Intel, Best Buy, and Nokia were not on the expo floor. In fact, they were in a tiny created hallway at folding tables on the way into the Geek Labs. I don’t know if this was their idea or BlogHer’s idea, but I would have liked to talk more with these folks – Nokia, in particular – without talking over or under the labs in the next cubicle. (Microsoft, at least, managed to score a suite they called the MicroSpa in a different area.)

There are some brilliant women out there who speak on social media and technology in general that weren’t a part of BlogHer. I was thrilled to see Corvida on a panel, which was also supposed to include Laura Fitton (who had to cancel at the last moment). Outside of those two, I didn’t notice names I’d have liked to see represented. Where was Kathy Sierra? How about Kara Swisher or Gina Tripani? There are a lot of great ladies in tech and social media right now (just look at any of Brian’s photo posts). I would have loved the opportunity to learn from them.

By saying that, I’m also sort of dissing myself. I was on the Food Blogging in the Recession panel (with my Wine Blog). It was eye-opening for me. I always thought of food blogging (and wine blogging is a subcategory) as people who ate food and wrote about it, whether it was in their own kitchen or in Thomas Keller’s restaurant. I always considered (and still do) restaurant bloggers to be legitimate food bloggers. This was a room of folks who wanted, for the most part, recipe tips. We talked about leftovers, freezing things, spices, but very rarely did we touch on actual blogging or other types of food blogging beyond cooking (live blog). I had really wanted my panel to discuss how we’re handling blogging itself in the recession, with an emphasis on food & wine. I did not expect it to get into coupons and leftovers. Obviously, I wasn’t accurately prepared for my audience and that is my own fault.

I’ve seen some tweets rudely stating that if you didn’t like BlogHer, then you should stay home. Other tweets and posts have implied that if you want tech, you should go to technology conferences. But here’s the thing – BLOG is in the title and even the New York Times called it a technology conference. Next year I hope they add a Technology Track. Not just a Business Track, but a full-fledged tech track that happens inside larger conference rooms and not cubicles.

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Cheers!

Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

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My BlogHer Experience Part 1: SwagHer

by Michelle Lentz on July 29, 2009

There was this perhaps unintentional (maybe?) conference at BlogHer this year. It didn’t have a name or a set location, but believe me, it existed.

I call it SwagHer.

My biggest suggestion for improving BlogHer is to remove it of swag. Some of the best conferences I attend (and I attend a lot each year) actually have better vendor conversations because the Swag has been removed. In fact, one of the best conferences I attend has eliminated the Expo floor all together and there are just tiny tiny booths (more like poster areas) for each vendor around the edges of the keynote hall.

You see, there was weird swag craziness this year. Each conference bag includes swag, which is fine. The expo hall was enlightening for me. Even at JavaOne, which provides a heck of a lot of swag, I have never experienced anything like this expo hall.

First off, the expo hall had vendors that were geared towards Mommy Bloggers and I have to tell you, we were not all Mommy Bloggers. The types of swag in the expo hall included Bounce dryer bars, All Laundry detergent, baby food, and so on. You get the picture. It was only really irritating when this would happen:

Vacuuming vendor: So how old are your kids?

Me: I don’t have kids.

Vacuuming vendor: Um, uh, I don’t know if we can help you.

Me: I have floors to vacuum too, you know.

Right. So that was fun. It’s not like it only happened once.

Beyond that, there were the parties. I witnessed women fighting over bags of sponges. Sponges people! Is it worth it? And those were just the public parties. Many of the alumna bloggers were invited to special, invite-only parties and collected amazing swag. It got to be so that in many ways, Swag became the focus of the conference.

There was one party I can think of that was open to the public where they hyped the Swag Bags all day on Twitter. So much so that we changed our plans to go, convinced that with all that hype (and only the first 100 people receiving the bags), that they had to contain Netbooks or Printers or something equally amazing (based on the sponsor). They got people to the party with the enticement of the Swag Bags. Turns out, the bags contained coupons and some people (not all) also had scarves. Yep, that’s it – over-hyped and driven by swag.

Now I say all this as the recipient of some awesome swag. In one bag, I got an adorable little Kodak video camera (that’s the same bag from which I acquired a pair of Crocs flip-flops, no threats needed). But I also returned/recycled/trashed a lot of what I received. You would see people wandering around the conference with 3 or 4 bags just filled to the brim with swag. This dovetails nicely, by the way, with yesterday’s post on Blogging with Integrity. So many people wanted to know how to get the free stuff, either in swag or by blogging, or both.

This behavior was encouraged by the marketers, but really, could you blame them? They had a willing audience. Not only that, many bloggers were apparently sponsored to go to BlogHer by different brands. In return, they were supposed to promote said brands, which several did in a classy way. But many of these sponsored bloggers were akin to used car salesmen, shoving their swag into your hands and forcing you to listen. It wasn’t uncommon to be accosted in the lobby of the hotel, given free stuff and then being forced to listen to an entire spiel. There’s got to be a better way.

Swag, and free stuff, is not what BlogHer should have been about, but that’s where some of the focus seemed to go. It was my first BlogHer and I was a bit taken aback by all of this. However, I suspect we’ve reached the tipping point, and with a fair amount of backlash I’ve read, it may be downplayed next year, or more controlled by the conference organizers. But some of it was out of their control and very much in the hands of the bloggers and marketers.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

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