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 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.

Aqua

Gary Danko

Fleur de Lys

Boulevard

Jardiniere

Silks

The NYC version is on its way!

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.

by Michelle Lentz

BlogWell is a 1-day conference on April 29 that offers 8 case studies on the best social media programs at several large corporations: Nokia, General Electric, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Turner Broadcasting System, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Tyson Foods, Johnson & Johnson.

Discussions include measuring ROI, managing teams, legal issues, B2B, working with agencies, and creating great content. It’s a great way to jump into social media for your company with how-to advice, a lesson on tricky disclosure issues, a live performance from Rhett & Link, and loads of ideas and examples.

We’ve got registration codes for you, but the event if only $250 to begin with. Use code THANKSBRIAN (I kid you not) and save 10% off registration. The event is April 29 at Chelsea Piers in New York City.

Blogwell is presented by GasPedal and the Blog Council.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Brian Solis

While the state of the U.S. economy has many gripped with fear, the spirit of tech entrepreneurs appears to be alive and well, and perhaps most notably, determined to excel regardless of the hurdles that may lie ahead.

On November 11th in New York, Microsoft Startup Zone partnered with The TechSet (Stephanie Agresta and yours truly) to host Ignite New York to debut the newly launched BizSpark initiative. BizSpark is a comprehensive program that is dedicated to helping startups grow and succeed by offering to caliber services, resources, platforms and software.

The event was hosted at One Little West 12, an elegant and beautiful ultra lounge in New York’s stylish Meat Packing District – next door to the Hotel Gansevoort, made popular by the Sex and the City Franchise.

Close to 400 people celebrated the spirit of entrepreneurialism that night, which made for an evening rich with valuable and productive conversations and networking.

New York is the first in a series of events. Austin, you’re next! See you on November 20th. RSVP here.

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

Leora Israel

Stephanie Frasco

Aaron Brazell (technosailor)

Adam Hirsh of Mashable and David Parmet

SavvyAuntie.com

Victor Karamalis

Laura Michaels and Bryan Thatcher of Fusebox and Empressr.com

Michelle DeForest

Karin Klein and Jennifer Klein

Peter Himler, David Parmet, Joe Ciarallo

Brett Petersel of Mashable stands out from the crowd

Stephanie Agresta and Steve Rosenbaum of Magnify.net

Jacob Mullins, Santiago Iturbe, Chris Brady

Victoria Stemmer and Paul Lewis of MTV

Mark Burstiner, Meghan Asha, and

Michael Lewis

Gary Sharma

Jonathan Dingman

David Blumenstein

RockBand – Kyle Sollenberger, Paul Lewis, Whitney Hess

Winner of the Twitter XBOX 360 contest

Arthur Boie, Chris Munns of Meetup.com, Damien Basile

Ari Greenberg and Bonnie Halper

Oz Sultan and Julia Johnston

Brian Solis

Brian August and Leora Israel

The Ignite Team, shot by Aaron Brazell

Earlier in the evening, team Ignite, attended the New York Newtech Meetup. To see my pictures of the meetup, jump over to my set on Flickr.

For more pictures from Ignite New York hosted by Microsoft BizSpark and TechSet, please visit my album on Flickr.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

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by Brian Solis

Prior to the BizSpark party hosted by Microsoft and TechSet at One Little West 12 in the Meat Packing District, I decided to pay another visit to the rooftop of the popular Gansevoort Hotel.

The partially cloud-covered skies served as another backdrop for awe-inspiring views.

Hudson River

Buddakan Restaurant

Part One

For more pictures from the “Evening in New York” set, please visit my album on Flickr.

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

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by Brian Solis

I’m in New York, preparing for this evening’s Ignition hosted by Microsoft Bizspark and TechSet. Make sure to RSVP here, it’s free and a can’t miss event.

I arrived yesterday in NYC towards the latter part of the evening. The night was too beautiful to not capture. It glowed with a soft radiance of the lights reflecting off the low hanging clouds, which created a hauntingly romantic setting.

The Dream Hotel also is a setting in of itself. I didn’t have to leave the hotel for this photo walk.

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

A View from the Rooftop

Lobby at The Dream

Desk at Dream Hotel

Hallway Painting

For more pictures from the “Evening in New York” set, please visit my album on Flickr.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

Subscribe to the bub.blicio.us RSS Feed.

by Michelle Lentz

Fun things come to both coasts, and this one is in NYC: Web 2.0 Expo New York. The speaker line-up looks pretty amazing. It includes Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim O’Reilly, Arianna Huffington, and our own Brian Solis.

Brian will be speaking on Web 2.0 and the Reinvention of Marketing and PR within the Media & Marketing track. Aside from Marketing, the tracks run the gamut, including Landscape & Strategy, Design & UX, Development, 2.0 at Work, Finance, and Performance & Scaling. Personally, I’d love to attend several of the 2.0 at Work sessions.

Web 2.0 Expo New York is September 16-19 at the Javits Center in NYC. Register soon. Bub.blicio.us readers can get a  $100 discount with code webny08mc23.

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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology.