Graeme Thickins on Tech

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

Tag: conferences (Page 5 of 7)

DEMO: People Are Central in New Model

January 31, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Chris Shipley is giving her introduction right now. There’s an exciting shift going on in IT, she says. Tech is no longer the central focus. “We’re deeply into the age of Age of the Power of the Individual.” Chrisintro_2 We have the power to choose the technologies we use and how we use them. “We’re all becoming designers and producers. We’re ‘creating consumers’,” Shipley says. It’s not just about consumer applications, however — personal preferences of enterprise buyers drive their IT choices, too. And the 68 companies here exemplify both areas, she says. “One person’s office app is another’s home-based business app in the making.”

The first demo presenter was the Kauffman Innovation Network, showing its new iBridge network, which is designed to help universities get their technologies off the shelves so they can be commercialized.

DEMO Opens With a Crowded Reception

January 31, 2007 / / 1 Comment

[UPDATE: I must apologize for blanking on Hany Nada’s name the other night. These receptions can do that to one… 🙂 He didn’t have his name badge on, and being a visual person, guess it didn’t get filed away in my semi-solid-state memory. Hany’s the former Piper Jaffray Minneapolis guy I mentioned, and is now Managing Director of Granite Global Ventures in Menlo Park. Also ran into yet another former Twin Cities dude (during the sessions on Wednesday) who worked with Hany at Piper: Charles Beeler, General Partner at Eldorado Ventures in Menlo Park. It’s like a Minnesota reunion!]

The DEMO 07 conference kicked off at 6:00 pm Tuesday with about 700 people crowding into an indoor reception in the beautiful Desert Springs JW Marriott Resort lobby. It had been scheduled to be outdoors, but the weather was a bit cool, shall we say? And it had actually been raining lightly when most people were arriving in the late afternoon. So much for the warm, sunny California desert… 🙁 Thought I’d post some random shots as I wandered about schmoozing. Coolest thing was I ran into a lot of former Minnesota people! It was like old-home week…

Thecrowd

A view of the very crowded lobby area. The rest of the guests must have been really ticked that this mob took over the place! (Especially at the rates they’re paying.) It was really hard to move around, so creative ways had to be used to work the crowd. The key: strategically timed perimeter moves!

Robertscoble

Robert Scoble from PodTech (and of course his own Scobleizer blog) was in the middle of things with his now ever-present video camera. That’s Stewart Alsop at the right, the original founder of the DEMO conference, which has quite a history: this is the 17th annual winter DEMO, and the 25th DEMO conference, since a fall event was added in 1999. Chris Shipley, who’s been the producer for many years, was just off to the right, but I wasn’t able to get a shot of her. (Plenty of opportunities to shoot some on stage.)

Johnfbrians

John Furrier (right), the founder and CEO of pioneering new media firm PodTech, which cosponsored the great Bloghaus at CES. He’s with Brian Solis, founder of social-media PR agency FutureWorks, which has offices in Silicon Valley and Orange County and is working with many hot, new startups.

Charlessteveshel2

Here’s where the Minnesota people start showing up. Charles Wilson (left), longtime Internet guru who started his career in the Twin Cities, working with such success stories as the Allaire brothers, and now consulting with DEMO presenter Mission Research…Steve Larsen, now spending most of his time in Menlo Park as CEO of Krugle, a hot site for tech geeks (Scoble says Microsoft should buy Krugle to solve its search woes!)…and Shel Israel (not from MN), co-author with Scoble of “Naked Conversations”, who’s so popular, I couldn’t get him to stay still enough to pose for this shot! He’s also known as a coach of many successful DEMO presenting firms.

Stevelchristineh

Steve Larsen with Christine Herron, director of investments at the Omidyar Network, which I learned was his first investor at Krugle. She’s also on the board of advisors at Mission Research, the DEMO presenter mentioned above.

Mplsfolks

Another shot of the (former) Minnesota folks: Charles Wilson again at left…joined by Beth Temple, now CMO at DEMO presenter Magnify.net in NYC…Shel Israel (we let him stay even though he’s not from MN!)…a guy whose name I didn’t quite get, who was with Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis until he moved to the Bay Area eight years ago…and Steve Larsen at right.

Vringoguys

Finally, I snapped a pic of David Goldfarb, CTO of Vringo, and his colleague Benjamin Levy, VP of Marketing — here to present their new video ringtone technology. I told them they have the coolest looking business cards and web site I’ve seen so far.

Afterwards, it was off to dinner with Steve Larsen, Beth Temple, Charles Wilson, Shel Israel, and four of the good folks from Mission Research, known for its “GiftWorks” fundraising software, and here to introduce its new “SalesWorks” solution for small and SOHO businesses.

The Buildup to DEMO Intensifies

January 30, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Well, it’s 24 hours and counting till the opening of DEMO ’07 tomorrow morning, and the bits are flying. (By the way, here’s the event schedule.) The blogs are lighting up, traffic tripled to yours truly yesterday, and the pre-announcement news releases are starting to hit my in-box. The first was from BUZ Interactive, which has designed a way to send personalized voicemails, mixed with music, to any mobile phone on the planet without having the phone ring. More news just arrived from ThePort.com, which has gone live with the download for its Blerts desktop RSS alerter (Windows only for now). [A quirk about some of the companies on the alphabetical DEMO presenters list — their service or product name is not what they’re listed under, so don’t look under “B”.]

Over at TechCrunch, I’m not surprised to see a post on Splashcast, a cool new Flash player to embed your channels on a website, since it’s where TechCrunch contributor Marshall Kirkpatrick has been working. (Though he, of course, did not write this post — Nick Gonzalez did.) Turns out Marshall has been blogging at the SplashCast web site for some time.

Meanwhile, Pete Cashmore at Mashable did a great post last night called Social Networking at DEMO – Standards Higher than Usual? It’s an excellent rundown of what we can expect in this category over the next two days at the conference.

Who will win the coveted DEMOgod awards? That we’ll learn at the closing media-panel dinner on Thursday evening. The panel will be moderated by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, and will include Victoria Barret, associate editor of Forbes, Larry Magid, tech columnist and CBS News contributor, and Laetitia Mailhes, correspondent for Les Échos. For some insight into the DEMOgod phenomenon, check out a blog post from my old Conferenza colleague, Gary Bolles, about the recent Churchill Club event in San Francisco. I also note that Conferenza is now running some breathless blogging by Sam Perry out in chilly NYC at the AlwaysOn Media conference, which overlaps with DEMO.

More from the desert soon….

DEMO ’07 Names Presenting Companies

January 26, 2007 / / 0 Comments

The producers of the DEMO 2007 conference, to be held January 30 – February 1 in Palm Desert, CA, have announced the 68 new and established companies that have been selected to introduce their innovations at the event. “These carefully vetted firms will introduce an array of consumer and enterprise solutions to an audience of investors, business development executives, media, pundits, and fellow entrepreneurs,” said the announcement. Demolaunchpadlogo Now in its 17th year, the DEMO conferences are widely regarded for launching important new technologies into the national consciousness.

Some of the technologies that will be introduced at DEMO 07, according to the announcement, are:
– The first video email and messaging service…
– A GPS product that allows users to control their vehicles wirelessly…
– Video ringtones…
– Small business solutions for email, shipping & receiving, and CRM…
– A product that allows you to IM photos directly onto your friends’ desktops…
– The ultimate mobile printer…
– A platform to improve developer productivity and product management…
– Software that tracks plagiarized blog content…
– Online identity protection tools…
– A community collaboration site focused on home improvement, remodeling and design projects…
– A service that secures messages within images so that only the intended recipients can view the text…
– A collaboration site for musicians…
– Sophisticated data search technologies for businesses…
– Media publishing services for consumers and corporations…
– Products from Spain, France, Israel, and India…

The DEMO 07 demonstrators that were named today are as follows:
• 6th Sense Analytics, Inc. – Morrisville, NC – www.6sa.com
• Adobe Systems, Inc. – San Jose, CA – www.adobe.com
• Aggregate Knowledge – San Mateo, CA – www.aggregateknowledge.com
• Alcatel-Lucent Ventures – Murray Hill, NJ – www.alcatel–lucent.com
• Attendio, Inc. – San Francisco, CA – www.attendio.com
• Bling Software, Inc. – Pleasanton, CA – www.blingsoftware.com
• blinkx, Inc. – San Francisco, CA – www.blinkx.com
• BooRah, Inc. – Palo Alto, CA – www.boorah.com
• Boston-Power, Inc. – Westborough, MA – www.boston–power.com
• Brevient Technologies, Inc. – Milwaukee, WI – www.jyngle.com
• BUZ Interactive – Palo Alto, CA – www.buzinteractive.com
• Ceelox, Inc. – Tampa, FL – www.ceelox.com
• CircleUp, Inc. – Newport Beach, CA – www.circleup.com
• ClipSyndicate, a service of Critical Mention – New York, NY – www.clipsyndicate.com
• DARTdevices Corp. – Mountain View, CA – www.dartdevices.com
• DesignIn, Inc. – Marblehead, MA – URL unavailable
• Devicescape Software, Inc. – San Bruno, CA – www.devicescape.com
• eJamming, Inc. – Valley Village, CA – www.ejamming.com
• Eyejot, Inc. – Seattle, WA – www.eyejot.com
• GoWare, Inc. – Gilbert, AZ – www.goware.biz
• Helium, Inc. – Andover, MA – www.helium.com
• Inilex, Inc. – Chandler, AZ – www.inilex.com
• ink2 Corporation – Emeryville, CA – www.ink2.com
• Integrien Corp. – Irvine, CA – www.integrien.com
• iqzone, inc. – Scottsdale, AZ – www.iqzone.com
• Iwerx, LLC. – Mt.Dora, FL – www.iwerx.com
• Jaman.com, Inc. – Palo Alto, CA – www.jaman.com
• Kauffman Innovation Network, Inc. – Kansas City, MO – www.iBridgeNetwork.org
• LiveSquare.com – Gilbert, AZ – www.livesquare.com
• Magnify.net – New York, NY – www.Magnify.net
• Me.dium, Inc. – Boulder, CO – www.me.dium.com
• Mission Research – Lancaster, PA – www.missionresearch.com
• Mixpo Portfolio Broadcasting, Inc. – Seattle, WA – www.mixpo.com
• Mobio Networks – Cupertino, CA – www.getmobio.com
• My Currency Co. – San Francisco, CA – www.my-currency.com/
• Nexo Systems, Inc. – Palo Alto, CA – www.nexo.com
• Nextumi – Dublin, OH – www.nextumi.com
• Nuvoiz, Inc. – Mountain View, CA – www.nuvoiz.com
• OurStory – Mountain View, CA – www.ourstory.com
• PairUp, Inc. – San Francisco, CA – www.pairup.com
• Panjea.com – Los Angeles, CA – www.panjea.com
• Preclick Corp. – Atlantic Highlands, NJ – www.preclick.com/demo
• QTech, Inc. – Hyderabad, AP, India – www.qtechinc.com
• Reveal Technology, Inc. – Palo Alto, CA – www.revealtechnology.com
• SailPoint Technologies, Inc. – Austin, TX – www.sailpoint.com
• Seagate Technology – Scotts Valley, CA – www.seagate.com
• Serendipity Technologies, Inc. – Yakum, Israel – www.serendipity–tech.com
• SharedBook, Inc. – New York, NY – www.sharedbook.com
• Shipwire.com – Los Angeles, CA – www.shipwire.com
• SOASTA, Inc. – Mountain View, CA – www.soasta.com
• SplashCast, Inc. – Portland, OR – www.splashcastmedia.com
• SupportSoft, Inc. – Redwood City, CA – www.supportsoft.com
• Symantec Corp. – Cupertino, CA – www.symantec.com
• TeleFlip, Inc. – Santa Monica, CA – www.teleflip.com
• TextDigger, Inc. – San Jose, CA – www.TextDigger.com
• ThePort Network, Inc. – Atlanta, GA – www.theport.com
• Thunk, Inc. – San Francisco, CA – www.honeypitch.com
• Total Immersion – Suresnes, France – www.t-immersion.com
• Trailfire, Inc. – Seattle, WA – www.trailfire.com
• Triumfant, Inc. – Research Triangle Park, NC – www.triumfant.com/
• Vringo, Inc. – Beit Shemesh, Israel – www.vringo.com
• VUVOX Network, Inc. – Redwood City, CA – www.vuvox.com
• WHISHER.COM – Barcelona, Spain – www.whisher.com
• Wyse Technology, Inc. – San Jose, CA – www.wyse.com
• Yodio, Inc. – Bellevue, WA – www.yodio.com
• ZINK Imaging, LLC. – Waltham, MA – www.zink.com
• Zoho / AdventNet, Inc. – Pleasanton, CA – www.zoho.com
• ZoomInfo – Waltham, MA – www.zoominfo.com

Conferences I Plan to Blog…

December 20, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Just to update you, o faithful blog readers, I thought I’d mention what conferences I’ll be blogging from in coming weeks and months. First of all, I’m happy to report I’ve been accepted again as a press registrant at the DEMO 2007 event, which is January 30 – February 1. This will be about my fourth DEMO event. Demo07banner The venue this year was switched from Phoenix to Palm Desert, California, which should be a glorious locale at this time of year (especially when I’ll be escaping Minnesota winter!). I always look forward to this conference, not only because 70 of the hottest startups in the country pitch their businesses here, but because it attracts so much buzz and media attention, more than virtually any other event all year long. The media list is like a who’s who. As always, companies you’ll be reading about a year, two years, three years from now will first be heard from at DEMO. And I’ll do my best to report the highlights for you… [See categories to the right for my coverage of both DEMO events in 2006.]

Another event I’m thinking about covering (but not sure yet if I can break away) is the big momma of ’em all: CES …which used to stand for Consumer Electronics Show, but now wants to be so much more (see theme). Being a content guy, how could I not like this one? Haven’t been to Vegas in a while — caught an Interop show there a couple years ago, and of course attended many Comdex events back in the day. CES, by the way, may be big, but it still doesn’t draw as many people as Comdex did in its heydey. Nonetheless, the show is today the “world’s largest tradeshow for consumer technology and North America’s largest annual tradeshow of any kind.” Get this: it will feature 2700 exhibitors covering floorspace the equivalent of 35 football fields(!), and will have 140,000 attendees — 25,000 of them from other countries. Ces07logotheme Those attendees will include manufacturers, retailers, content providers and creators, broadband developers, wireless carriers, cable and satellite TV providers, installers, engineers, corporate buyers, government leaders, financial analysts and the media. [How could I not like pal-in’ around with those installers, huh? Cable guys attend this thing?? Maybe I should reconsider….] Anyway, there will be a ton of press at this one, and the bloggers will outnumber them — guaranteed. The combined total will easily be in the thousands. Robert Scoble, the well known author and former head blogger at Microsoft, who’s now VP of Media Development at Podtech, will even have his own suite where bloggers can hang out. Here’s what he said on his blog: “By the way, our BlogHaus at CES will be open to ANY blogger, not just those ‘blessed’ by Microsoft or some other company. You just need to have me put your name on the list so you can get up to our suite.” I did.

Finally, I’m looking out to March and thinking I’d love to blog ETech again. O’Reilly is my favorite publisher and conference producer. [You’ll note I recommend many of its books under the “Reading” subhead at the right. Disclosure: I do get free books from time to time, but only post those I really find of value.] Oreillyetechlogo I’ve really enjoyed reporting on this conference in the past, and love running into my old blog buddies there, like Doc Searls and David Weinberger. Sure, it’s a developer event. But, as I’ve said before, some of my best friends are developers…. 🙂 And this event draws an awesome, a-list of attendees, too, at all levels, and many other great bloggers. Anyway, it would be fun to capture it again for y’all, and I hope to get out to San Diego for it in late March. [Okay, it’s an excuse to hang out again at my favorite beach, too 🙂 … ]

Tags: , ,

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Graeme Thickins on Tech

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑