Thursday, May 14, 2009

What's Next in Tech? Discuss the Growth Opportunities, on June 25th

I'm moderating an event on June 25th called "What's Next in Tech: Exploring the Growth Opportunities of 2009 and Beyond."

The idea is to provide a picture of the tech clusters that are going to drive the next waves of growth here in Massachusetts, from cloud computing to robotics to videogames to energy efficiency to social media. Speakers include venture capitalist Bijan Sabet from Spark Capital, iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner, Brian Halligan of HubSpot, and Tim Healy, who runs the publicly-traded EnerNOC. (Note: The early registration rate ends on May 15th -- tomorrow.)

One goal leading up to the event is to start some blog conversation about the high-potential areas in tech right now... a discussion we'll obviously continue at the event on June 25th. (Boston University's Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship & Commercialization is hosting it.)

Bloggers like Don Dodge, Pito Salas, Larry Cheng, Doug Levin, Tom Summit, Gregg Favalora, Furqan Nazeeri, Chris Herot, and the folks at Mobile Monday Boston have already published their lists of "what's next in tech." If you decide to create one, post a link to it in the comments here.

Here's the list of tech areas I'm following most closely (in no particular order...and excluding here all things outside of pure tech, such as life sciences, med devices, energy):

    - Healthcare IT and electronic medical records
    - Digital video (esp. getting Internet video onto the TV)
    - New analytics companies (in the vein of Compete.com, Visible Measures, Localytics, etc.)
    - Mobile apps
    - Robotics
    - Video games
    - Intersection of IT and energy efficiency/management
    - New forms of media/reporting/content creation
    - Online payment and micropayment
    - Better management/prioritization of e-mail
    - Cloud computing and SaaS (wrong to group those two together?)
    - Social media and marketing (wrote about this pretty recently)
    - Ways of connecting bands (and other creative artists) with their fans (a la Sonicbids)
    - Enhancing e-commerce (a la Paragon Lake, which does custom jewelry)
    - New ways of interfacing with computers (touch, speech, thought, etc.)


I could go on, but that's a start...

(The hashtag for the "What's Next in Tech" event is #whatsnext09. Feel free, of course, to Tweet about it... and hope to see you there!)

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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Are these guys the new 'Mad Men'?

Sunday's Globe column touches on the writers, consultants, and conference organizers based here in Boston who are helping to define a new approach to marketing.

    Lots of different terminology is being tossed around to try to describe the shift, from social media to content marketing to social marketing to inbound marketing. The word "social" implies that the personal connections between individuals who can help spread your message to others are increasingly important. "Content marketing" alludes to creating content that people choose to spend time with, whether it's a list of tips for maintaining a beautiful lawn or a funny video, like the "Will It Blend?" series created by the Utah blender maker Blendtec. "Inbound marketing," coined by the Cambridge-based software company HubSpot, implies that a company has a prominent presence online and is delivering value to customers so they'll come find it, rather than simply broadcasting "outbound" messages and hoping for the best.


This new marketing mafia includes companies like Brand Networks, Hubspot and BzzAgent, and people like C.C. Chapman, Chris Brogan, Paul Gillin, and David Meerman Scott. (I'm sure I've left key players out here, so feel free to add a comment...)

(Mashable took a look recently at Boston's social media scene, from a slightly different perspective.)

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Wednesday, February 25, 2009

What Advice Would You Give to a Friend Who's Looking for Work?

What advice would you give -- or what advice have you been giving -- to a friend who's currently in the job market? One thing that not everyone knows to do?

Post a comment here, if you would...

Sunday's Globe column offered a collection of advice that I gathered last week from recruiters, CEOs, and HR execs.

There was also this video conversation with HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan, who talked about using social media for building your own personal brand:

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Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The Five Most Common Conflicts Among Founders

Dharmesh Shah of the software company HubSpot has a great blog post about the five most common conflicts that occur among founders of start-ups:

    1. The "Who Gets What?" Conflict

    2. The "I Work Harder Than You!" Conflict

    3. The "Who Gets To Decide?" Conflict

    4. The "I Can't Stand Jill, One Of Us Has To Leave!" Conflict

    5. The "We're Going Down In Burning Flames…" Conflict

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