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Silicon Valley PRSA Hosts Media Predicts 2009

by Brian Solis on December 4, 2008

by Brian Solis

The Silicon Valley PRSA chapter hosted its annual Media Predicts event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Industry trendsetters, chroniclers and luminaries shared their predictions for trends, issues and technologies for 2009.

Media Predicts is literally a black tie affair that attracted PR professionals from every major agency and tech company in Silicon Valley.

Sam Whitmore of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey emceed the evening and Ann Windbladt of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners served as the moderator.

The panel consisted of tech media heavyweights:

Elise Ackerman, Technology Reporter, San Jose Mercury News
Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
John Markoff, Senior Writer, The New York Times
Mark Veverka, West Coast Editor & Columnist, Barron’s
Richard Waters, West Coast Editor, Financial Times

The discussion ranged from netbooks to Web 2.0 to Google and Facebook to Microsoft and Yahoo and everything in between. The witty banter seemed to lead us all over the place, but overall, it still fun and entertaining.

The panel invited us to gaze into their respective crystal balls for a moment, but for the most part, we dissected and analyzed the successes and epic failures of 2008.

Here are some of the highlights;

Some viewed the Obama campaign as the killer app of 2008, while others were ready to move beyond “Web 2.0.”

Michael Arrington, for example, scrubbed Web 2.0 from TechCrunch. When asked by Ann what his definition of Web 2.0 is, Arrington responded, “Web 2.0 was a renaissance from a nuclear winter – the last recession. We’re all about technology.”

Richard Waters defined Web 2.0 as ultra-low cost publishing with a bit of interactive tools.

Joh Markoff described it as open interfaces and open tools that plug services together in a Lego-like function.

The conversation promptly shifted from open to closed systems.

Arrington characterized a trend that closed could be the new open. He highlighted two successful companies that are based on closed systems, Apple and Facebook. In 2009, he’s looking forward to the competition between Android, iPhone and other smart phones.

Markoff countered, claiming that Apple is not closed. “If you count the lines of code in the Mac OS, 1/2 are open source,” he exclaimed.

Arrington pointed to Microsoft in its prime. “What if Microsoft approved all apps for the Windows OS before they were allowed to sell to the public,” he asked.

Richard Waters jumped in, “Apple is a closed system and closed platform,” he stated.

Ann introduced Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2009:

Virtualization
Cloud Computing
Servers
Web-Oriented Architectures
Enterprise Mashups
Specialized Systems
Social Software and Social Networks
Unified Communications
Business Intelligence
Green IT

In response to the list, Arrington revealed that he’s fascinated by the cloud computing efforts that are targeted at enterprise and consumers. However, he cautioned against the over enthusiasm of 2009 trends in the enterprise as it may well be the year of tremendous IT cuts in resources and budget.

Richard Waters refererred to Chris Anderson’s next book, “FREE.” In 2009, he believes that free is no longer going to be a good business model to support. “Cheap, on the otherhand is a great business model,” he believes.

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

Ann Winblad, John Markoff

Michael Arrington, TechCrunch

Mark Veverka, Barron’s

John Markoff

Elise Ackerman, San Jose Mercury News

Sam Whitmore

For more pictures from the Media Predicts 2009 event, please visit my album on flickr.

Special thanks to DNA13 for the invitation to join them at the event.

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Finding The Silicon Valley Tech Parties

by Adam Jackson on November 11, 2008

Photo by Brian Solis

My name is Adam Jackson and I am a party addict. I’m not referring to the parties we all attended in college but the parties where you talk about startups and swap business cards.

I moved to San Francisco only five months ago. The night I touched down at SFO, I was immediately off to a Laughing Squid drinkup. Now, attending tech parties has been a daily ritual since arriving in the city and now I attend 1-4 parties a night.

How does an individual find these tech parties?

First of all I spend the first hour of each day scouring a few event lists in an attempt to find parties and then they’re added to my calendar. The reason I put everything in my calendar is because simply RSVPing to an event via Facebook and Upcoming requires that I visit both websites and it’s easy double book yourself without a centralized schedule.

Here are the event lists that I check daily.

As you’re probably realizing, this process is incredibly time consuming and any person whose primary role is to attend tech events will not spend an hour a day scanning each of these sites. Here are some tips that will make things a little easier.

Visit Robert Scoble’s Upcoming.org Page (link). He RSVPs to nearly every event on Upcoming that is tech related and you’ll see most events via his page. It’s a great resource.
Become friends with Andrew Mager (link). Andrew is another “party guy” and browsing his status updates will show his public RSVPs to many bay area tech events that are on Facebook. There will be overlap with events that are on Upcoming but you won’t miss anything this way.
Subscribe to Social Calendario (link). This is a website that I have operated for the past few months. Instead of posting things to my private calendar, they all go here. I post meetups, parties and conferences to this page.

Nothing compares to simple grunt work, but if you’re just getting started in the tech space, it’s valuable to have a helping hand. Pretty soon, you’ll get more invites to lists than you can handle. Deciding between two events that are equally as awesome is a tough decision to make but it’s better than missing a really good party that you didn’t know about.

Social networking has enabled us to connect with like minded individuals across the globe but nothing compares to face to face networking you’ll get at a tech event. These events are happening everywhere and the sites I listed above can help you find them.

Since moving to San Francisco and attending these parties, my workload and client base has doubled, I’ve seen growth in Twitter followers and traffic to my blogs. It’s important that every startup have a representative that attends these events and if you’re a freelance graphic artist, marketer or blogger, it’s also important that you are seen and connect with people at these events.

The payout is enormous compared to an email or reply on Twitter.

Adam Jackson has been dubbed, “the party guy” and frequently attends tech parties. He is a social media marketer and has a few various projects in the works including a book. You can find more about Adam on Twitter, Flickr and on his website.

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The Sky is Falling – Again

by Brian Solis on October 8, 2008

by Brian Solis

Panic leads to the further declination and eradication of progress.

Yes the market is slipping.

Yes, the financial market is resetting.

But the U.S economy, actually, the global economy, is a yo-yo on an escalator. It might go up and down, but eventually, it’s always going up.

Those who do not proactively contribute to the economy’s escalation are taking away from its ability to instill confidence and rally support.

So instead of running into a cave, shaking your head in disbelief, crying aloud, or scaring the sh!t out of everyone, ask yourself, “what are you going to do about it?”

VCs are calling for startups to cut expenses.

Entrepreneurs hear that directive clearly as, “cut expenses.”

But, which expenses do they cut?

Here’s a simple answer…Don’t cut or eliminate the expenses that strategically and cost effectively help you and your business engage customers and also the respective influencers who reach them and their social graph.

This is the time for entrepreneurs to realize that this is their opportunity to shine – especially if they have built something that businesses or real people can use to streamline their workflow or improve day-to-day routine.

In a down economy, tomorrow’s leaders are born today. It takes vision, focus, and a hyper-connected sense of what customers are looking for and where.

There is still valuable, helpful, and marketable innovation taking place today that people are willing to embrace.

Blindly cutting expenses for the sake of cutting expenses only fuels the hysteria.

VC’s, help educate the people running your investments on how to best navigate these rough waters.

Remember, any company that intentionally pulls itself from the radar screens of potential and existing customers will find itself on a direct path to the Dead Pool.

The question is, what are you going to do about it?

Sequoia Capital (via GigaOM)

Via Inquisitr

Connect with me on:
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Mashable Monthly SF at Roe

by Alex Ho on August 27, 2008

By Alex Ho

cross posted at www.startupordown.com

The first Mashable Monthly San Francisco event took place last week and packed the whole Roe Restaurant and Lounge. I wasn’t able to make it to the special pre party event for bloggers and press and actually didn’t get to the party until around 9ish but better late, than never. The top floor by that time, was packed with people while the blogger lounge downstairs had a little more breathing room but was not exactly empty either. Don’t these pictures make you wish you were there!

Mr. GQ of San Francisco, Pete Cashmore was the celebrity of the hour of course, here in front of the Mashable/Bub.blicio.us backdrop with Alice, Krystel, and Rana.

Lorna, Andrew, and Vanessa

Krystel, Andrew, and Alice

Awesome Aubrey with two glasses of wine to cure her jetlag back from Beijing.

Morgan and Kaley

More images from the event here

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Silicon Valley Newtech Meetup, You’re Invited

by Brian Solis on August 5, 2008

by Brian Solis

Tonight is the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup in Palo Alto. I’ve been a co-organizer, supporting Vincent Lauria for a couple of years now. Due to ongoing scheduling conflicts, it’s a rare occassion when I can actually attend.

I’m happy to announce that I will be your host for this evening.

The Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup is a monthly showcase for startups and established market leaders to share the latest in consumer technology.

Tonight, we have an excellent lineup for you:

involver.com – Tyler Willis
med.ium.com – David Mandell
kiobo.com – Sanjay Tibrewal (stibrewal@gmail.com)
alltop.com – Guy Kawasaki

Join us at 7 p.m. at DLA Piper – 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94303 (Four Seasons Hotel Campus).

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

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