Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: Marketing/Branding/PR (Page 6 of 29)

My Day at Blogwell – Minneapolis

The sixth regional BlogWell event was held yesterday, August 13, 2009, at General Mills headquarters in suburban Minneapolis, sponsored by GasPedal and the Social Media Business CouncilBlogwell-logoIt was a sold-out conference, with more than 300 registered, and the largest such event to date of any of the previous versions held in major cities across America. Ours drew attendees from several states (and even as far away as San Francisco and London). It featured practical, how-to case studies from eight large corporations that have succeeded using social media: General Mills, Mayo Clinic, Walmart, CME Group, McDonald’s, Progressive, Ford, and AccuQuote (a last-minute replacement for H&R Block). Blogwell-graphic

I participated in live-blogging the event as a member of the “Minnov8 Gang,” with my colleagues Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, and Phil Wilson. Minnov8 was a media partner for the event. Please check out the archive of our live blogging at BlogWell at the Minnov8 site. We think it turned out great. It was the first time we’ve used a great new tool for this purpose called ScribbleLIve.  It even allows the archive to be presented in normal, chronological order (unlike typical blogging formats).

My Photos: As I usually do at events I’m covering, I point and shoot when I can, when I’m not heads-down on the keyboard. Or schmoozing. Or interviewing. I randomly grab shots with either my iPhone or my little (semi-worthless) Canon A560. One of these days, I’m going to get a better camera. Or, uh, become a better photographer? Someday. When I have time. Nonetheless, here’s my Flickr set, for what it’s worth.

My Tweets:  Didn’t do too many at the event, since we were live-blogging in longer-than-140-character chunks, which arguably is a better way to cover events. But what tweets I did do (before, during, and after) you can scroll back and see here: @GraemeThickins …and they’re also mixed in with just a TON of tweets the flowed on the hashtag #blogwell all day yesterday — and I see are continuing today.

My Interviews: I took along my trusty studio-grade handheld recorder (the Olympus LS-10) and grabbed seven brief audio interviews before and after the sessions, and during breaks. The last two featured wine, so you’ll have to excuse the background merriment. Here are the MP3s, in the order I recorded them:

Listen to my interview of my friend and fellow Minneapolis blogger Arik Hanson.

Listen to my interview of Gia Lyons, evangelist for Jive Software.

Listen to my interview of Don Smith, a social media guru at General Mills.

Listen to my interview of Jesse Engle, CEO and cofounder of Cotweet.

Listen to my interview of Jim Cuene, Director of Interactive Marketing, General Mills.

Listen to my interview of Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company.

Listen to my interview of Andy Sernovitz, founder of GasPedal and Social Media Business Council.

Jason Kintzler of PitchEngine Speaking in Twin Cities July 13

According to ace conference organizer Jen Kane of Kane Consulting in Minneapolis, it's now a "brave new
world" in public relations. And to help managers of local businesses
and PR practitioners alike better understand how "new hybrid media
forms" are changing the game, she's flying in a
national speaker who's an expert on the subject. 

JasonKintzlerPitchEngine-logo Called "PR 2.0: The New Tools of the Trade," the event will be held Monday July 13 from 8:00 am till 4:00 pm at the Westin Galleria, 3201 Galleria, in Edina, MN 55435. Jason Kintzler, founder and CEO of
PitchEngine, is the keynote presenter.  PitchEngine, based in Casper, Wyoming, is "a social media release service" that enables PR
professionals to package stories and share them with journalists,
bloggers, and influencers via the social web. (By the way, if you want to follow Jason, here's his Twitter page, which tells us he's also a former journalist, a graphic designer, a fly fisherman, and a snowboarder.)

Said Jen JenKanein announcing the event (she's pictured below, and that's colleague Kary Delaria at right), KaryDelaria "If you’re
in the business of sharing facts, telling stories, starting
conversations, and monitoring dialogue about your company or client,
this is stuff you need to know."   

 The conference will also feature eight breakout sessions reflecting
the most cutting edge and innovative thinking on how to navigate this
rapidly changing industry. I know most all these folks and can attest they know their stuff. Kane-logo

The breakout sessions include:

•  "Using Social Media Behind the Firewall" – Gary Koelling, Best Buy, and Cameron Gross, GreaterThan Media, a consultant to Best Buy.
•  "Pitching Using New Media Tools" – Eva Keiser, Senior Vice President, Risdell McKinney Public Relations.
•  "Online Reputation Management" – Greg Swan, Digital Strategy Manager, Weber Shandwick Digital Communications.
•  "Incorporating Podcasts and Video Into Your Marketing and PR Mix" – Albert Maruggi, founder of Provident Partners and Producer of the Marketing Edge podcast.
•  "Self Publishing for PR" – Arik Hanson, ACH Communications/Chief Blogger, Communications Conversations.
•  "How to Monitor Your Brand Through Social Media Channels" – Connie Benson, Chief Community Officer, Techrigy.
•  "Optimizing Content of Press Releases and Beyond" – Jolina Pettice, Senior Account Manager, TopRank Online Marketing.
•  "Small Brands. Big Results" – Blois Olson, Executive Vice President, Tunheim Partners.

In addition, there will be open lab periods where attendees can
network with others and explore new online PR and marketing tools and
applications.

The organizers tell me that remaining space is limited, but
registration may still be available as you read this.  To register and
see the list of those attending to date, here's the PR 2.0 event registration page. You can also see the press release for the event here: a PitchEngine release, of course!

Can't make the event but still want to schmooze?

You're in luck. Kane Consulting also announced they're holding a
"TweetUp" after the conference from 6:00 to 9:00 pm at Tavern on
France!  You may have seen some buzz about this on our local Social Media Breakfast (SMBmsp) site
— well, now it’s official.  It's your chance to meet Jason Kintzler of
PitchEngine and hob-nob with the local PR digerati.  But you must RSVP here for the TweetUp.  It's open to all.  There’s no cost to attend this evening gathering, and you can simpy order food and drinks off the menu.

See ya there!

GlueCon 09: My Interviews with VCs Brad Feld and Seth Levine

While I was reporting from the first-year Glue Conference the past few days in Denver, I had the opportunity to interview two of the guys behind the scenes in launching and planning this great event: Brad Feld and Seth Levine, partners in VC firm Foundry Group, which is based in nearby Boulder, CO. (Actually, of the two, Seth was more involved in Glue, while Brad was the main guy behind launching a sister event called Defrag, which is held in the fall in Denver, the first one being in November 2007.) 

I had noticed in the days leading up to Glue that Foundry Group had announced a new investment (Gist, whose founder was at Glue), then I saw two more investments they announced on their blogs while the event was going on (Medialets and CloudEngines). So, I decided to see if I could interview both Brad and Seth during breaks on Day 2 of Glue to learn about these latest new portfolio companies of theirs.

Brad (left photo) and Seth typify what I’ve called before The New Face of Venture Investing — a post I actually did in December 2007, which specifically called out Brad. BradFeld   I’ve also written previously about Seth, in a post from June 2008 called The Best Advice I’ve Seen Lately on Using Startup Advisors. They are both really nice guys, wicked smart, and doing great work helping many entrepreneurs build successful startups in a place that…well, is not Silicon Valley.  Yes, they’ve proved in spades that it can be done. SethLevine And, unlike your typical VCs, they do believe in investing outside their own backyard — as is the case with all three of their latest investments.  Sure, many of their portfolio companies are in Colorado, where a lot of innovation is going on (which they’re involved in on a day-to-day basis — including the TechStars program, which they helped launch).  But they’re also smart enough to know great ideas and great teams can live anywhere. I love the way they get involved in these events of theirs — they’re right in the middle of it all, very much a part of the “community” that each of these events they’ve launched really has become. It doesn’t take long to realize that both these guys are “people persons” through and through.

I spoke with Brad first, about the Gist investment, which had been announced the week before, and in particular about the investment they had just announced early that morning, on Day 2 of Glue: CloudEngines.

Download the MP3 of my interview with Brad Feld.

Later the same morning, I spoke at greater length with Seth, primarily about Foundry Group leading a $4M Series A investment in Medialets, which had been announced on Day 1 of Glue.  We also spoke a bit about an earlier investment of Seth’s in the advertising space, AdMeld.

Download the MP3 of my interview with Seth Levine.

For more about the Glue Conference, see my Twitterstream for the past three days.  I must have tweeted darn-near a couple hundred times!  And I saw this morning after I was back in Minneapolis that conference organizer Eric Norlin said he’d just read through all the tweets on the event — 62 pages total!  You can find the whole shebang by going to search.twitter.com and entering “gluecon” in the search box. It was a very successful event by all accounts.  I’m really happy I was part of it, and have already said I’ll sign up for next year! 

Upcoming Event to Focus on the ROI of Digital Marketing

A Twin Cities event for senior executives and marketing professionals has been announced by long-standing Minneapolis web marketing firm Ciceron.  Entitled Radical ROI: Seizing the Potential of the Digital Marketplace, the half-day panel will be held Monday, May 11, 2009, from 8:00 to 11:00 am at the Midland Hills Country Club in St. Paul.

RadicalROIForum-051109


The event offers attendees a chance to hear how a panel of local business leaders have transformed their organizations to thrive in the digital marketplace — and I am privileged to be one of those panelists:

• Paul Douglas: CEO, Weather Nation (and former chief meteorologist, WCCO TV)

• Jan McDaniel: CEO, JTM Vision (and former CEO, American Red Cross Twin Cities)

• Phil Hotchkiss: Founder, BigCharts.com

• Joel Kramer: Founder, MinnPost.com (and former Publisher, Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

• Graeme Thickins: Founder, GT&A Strategic Marketing

• Andrew Eklund: CEO, Ciceron Digital Marketing

A special reduced rate of $195 per person is available till May 3 at this registration page, with a group rate of only $395 for up to five people from the same organization.

Ciceron is a web marketing and consulting agency based in
Minneapolis. It offers full-service solutions from
professional search engine optimization and email marketing programs to
in-depth metrics and performance tracking.  Its clients have included such major brands as Home Depot, Nascar, USBank, Andersen Windows, Best Buy, Target, and Pepsi.  For more about Cicero, check out their about page, their full client list, and here are their management bios.

I hope to see you at "Radical ROI: Seizing the Potential of the Digital Marketplace" on May 11. Again, use this registration page before May 3 to get those preferential rates.

How to Get Buzz for Your Startup Launch: Write a Book!

Okay, not everyone can pull this off.  But one experienced Minneapolis tech entrepreneur, George Reese, is doing it in a big way with a new book on "cloud computing."  What's cloud computing, you ask?  Did you just come out from under a rock?   If you're involved in any way in IT, even on the fringes of it, you've been blasted for months with an almost endless amount of media coverage and discussion about this topic — a recent example being on the front page of The Wall Street Journal the other day.  Even most casual Internet users are now aware that many of their consumer web apps are accessed "in the cloud," as opposed to being software they install on their own computers. Google's Gmail is probably the best known example of that.

George Reese is cofounder of a new Minneapolis startup, enStratus, GeorgeReese-headshotand is right smack in the middle of all the buzz. 
Thanks to his new book, which he worked on for six months, he's in a great position to help clear the air surrounding a lot of the cloud computing hype that's flying around out there now.  He's especially interested in helping enterprises that are looking to take advantage of the economic benefits of this form of corporate IT. 

GeorgeReese-book-200w
On April 10, George's new book will be released by O'Reilly Media:  "Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud."  And here's the Amazon link.  It's now available at both these links for pre-ordering. I've known George since 2006, in relation to his previous startup, Valtira (a SaaS marketing platform), from which enStratus is being spun out.  (I also know David Bagley, the CEO of Valtira, who's the other cofounder of enStratus.)  I thought it would be fun to get George's thoughts about this uber-hot topic of cloud computing, and hear the story behind his book.  This is an interview I conducted with him earlier this week, which first appeared on the cloud computing site Cloud Ave. and, later, on our own Minnesota tech news site, Minnov8.

Graeme:  How long have you been involved with cloud computing, and what made you decide to write this book?

George:  I suppose that depends on what you mean when you say "cloud computing." I've been developing SaaS systems for the past five years, but got into Amazon Web Services and Infrastructure as a Service in late 2007 when my company Valtira needed an alternate approach to a high-availability infrastructure. During this time, I've developed a body of experience in putting transactional database applications into the Amazon Cloud.  My editor at O'Reilly, with whom I've written several books in the past, heard I was doing cloud work and asked me to put together a book on the subject.

Graeme:  Why is cloud computing gaining adoption like it is?  What is its attraction?  We know Internet and IT startups love it, but do you think it will catch on in any significant way with larger enterprises?

George:  The primary attractions to cloud computing are cost and flexibility. Cloud computing enables you to build out a world-class IT infrastructure with no up-front capital investment and pay for the growth of your infrastructure as the business it is supporting grows.

I believe enterprise IT has a strong need for the benefits of cloud computing, but they have higher expectations with respect to reliability and scalability than startups. My company enStratus is all about dealing with these two concerns for enterprise IT, and I talk a lot about that in the book.

Graeme:  For what types of readers did you primarily write the book? What will they get from it that they can't get elsewhere?

George:  The book is for people tasked with making the move into the cloud and guiding them through that move. I start by establishing what the cloud means from my perspective and what its value is to an organization. The book covers how you evaluate what makes sense to move into the cloud and, once the decision is made, the security, availability, and disaster recovery planning necessary to operate at an enterprise level in the cloud.

Graeme:  Do you deal in the book with the issue of choosing a cloud computing provider? In not, why not?  Do you attempt to compare providers?

George:  No. Anything I might say in the way of a comparison would be out of date by the time the book hit the shelves. Jeff Barr from Amazon reviewed the book for technical accuracy, and E.J. Johnson from Rackspace and Randy Bias from GoGrid both provided appendices describing their offerings.

Graeme:  What are some of the other key issues you deal with in the book, such as security and reliability of the cloud?  And what does the book deliver that's not available elsewhere?

George:  Given my role at enStratus, cloud security and reliability are obviously key concerns of mine. I spend an entire chapter on security issues and cover how to architect your applications for maximum availability throughout the book. I have not seen much of this kind of talk available on the Internet; mostly warnings about how security and availability are things you should worry about.

Graeme:  Readers of the book will also learn about the management tools you have developed for use in your own company, Valtira, which offers a SaaS marketing platform. Please tell us how those tools led to the formation of a separate, spinoff company.

George:  Valtira was looking to build out a new service offering that required a high-availability infrastructure. We priced out a managed services infrastructure to support our needs, but that proved too costly for a new product offering. We then turned to the Amazon cloud to see if it would meet our needs. We ran into a number of obstacles along the way. Some of these obstacles have since been addressed by Amazon through new service offerings like Elastic Block Storage. For other obstacles, we built out tools to take care of things. It turns out that people who were not Valtira customers really wanted our tools, so we spun them out into enStratus.

Graeme:  You began working on the book many months ago. The release of the book seems now to be right at a time of intense focus on cloud computing, undoubtedly driven in part by current economic conditions.  What's your take on all the hype?

George:  Cloud computing is the most disruptive technology to hit business since the Web. It's not hype. Like any disruptive technology, however, there's a lot of misinformation flying around. To make matters worse, every person has a different internal definition of "the cloud" that frames their discussions on the subject. So, the hype is warranted, but everyone needs to pay particular attention to context and definitions in their discussions.

Graeme:  With the book's release, your speaking schedule is naturally heating up.  Please tell us where people can find you in coming weeks and months.

George:  Well, first, I'll be presenting at CloudCamp in New York City on April 1. Following that, O'Reilly has a webcast on "Getting Started with Amazon Web Services" scheduled for April 8.  In Minneapolis, I'll be speaking at the Minnesota High Tech Association's spring conference on April 15, and then at CloudCamp Minneapolis/St. Paul on April 18 at the U of MN.  Recently, my company enStratus was chosen as a presenting startup at the Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, CA, on April 24.  The following month, I'll be speaking on the topic of information privacy and security in the cloud at the Glue Conference in Denver on May 12. Then it's off to London, where I'll be speak on May 15 at WebTech Exchange 2009 on the topic of hardening an EC2 infrastructure.

Graeme:  That definitely qualifies as a whirlwind, George! Thanks for taking some time to tell us about your book, and I look forward to seeing you at some of these upcoming events.

By the way, follow George on Twitter @GeorgeReese and his company's tweets @enStratus.

(Disclosure: the author has a consulting relationship with enStratus.)

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