Tag: events

Podcast: Fine-Art Site Socurio Makes the Community the Curator

March 16, 2010 / Graeme / 1 Comment

At a recent Club Entrepreneur lunch downtown, which is held at the wonderful, old Minneapolis Club, I had the opportunity to meet one of the cofounders of a unique startup. [Club Entrepreneur is a monthly lunch event run by my longtime colleague Rick Brimacomb. I wrote a post about the event here. For more info, email: rick at brimacomb dot com.] The name of that cofounder was Ion Skillrud, shown at right in the photo. (And, yes, I said at the time I'd never seen that first name of his spelled that way!) The name of his startup is Socurio, which is a new kind of "creative marketplace and community for fine art." I learned his cofounder, Sasha Koehn (left in the photo), was based in LA. I thought there must be an interesting story here, and I was right — with both a Minnesota and Wisconsin connection. So, when Ion followed up with me, I suggested the three of us record a podcast sometime — which we were able to do yesterday, via Skype conference call.

What's really different about this online art marketplace is that it bridges a real gap the founders see between art and the consumer. The latter being you and me: admirers of art, but not artists ourselves. The vision for Socurio — its differentiation, they say — is that it's a "refined" art marketplace, where the art is already filtered by the community.

Other art sites are loaded up with all kinds of clutter. Here, the big idea is this: the community is the curator. Art buyers are obviously a key target for the site, but even those with just an appreciation and no big budget play a key role. Because the really cool feature, the founders say, is that you don't just buy art on Socurio — you collect ("celebrate") art, on your own page on the site, viewable by all visitors to the site. Anyone can join the site for free, and we also talked about the site's revenue streams, which include a share of transactions, as well as advertising.

So, take a listen to the interesting startup story of Socurio. And also hear about the first "ARTintended" event they held, which was their launch event in LA last week. The podcast is about a 20-25 minutes long. Here's the MP3 file:

• Download or listen to Graeme's interview with the founders of Socurio (MP3)"

Show notes:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Socurio/35785193539
Twitter: www.twitter.com/socurio
Blog: http://blog.socurio.com
Flickr pix from launch event: www.flickr.com/photos/39330436@N06/sets/72157623634964200/
More about the "ARTintended" events: http://blog.socurio.com/p/artintended.html

Upcoming Event to Focus on the ROI of Digital Marketing

April 12, 2009 / Graeme / 0 Comments

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.

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.

DEMO Alumni Party Packed ‘Em In

August 15, 2007 / Graeme / 0 Comments

I don’t know how many people actually showed up last night at Zibibbo in Palo Alto, but the DEMO folks said more than 500 had pre-registered. It’s a good thing they reserved the whole place for this affair — bar, patio, restaurant — because they needed every bit of that space. It was close quarters! But fun, and I saw many old friends, colleagues, and clients, and met some other interesting people. I thought I’d come pretty far, flying in from Minneapolis just in time (and staying today to do some other business), till I learned some other dude had come from France!

The roster of company founders and their VCs and PR people at this gala was pretty amazing. I could name drop, but I won’t. You could look at my Flickr pix of the party, though, and maybe pick out some you know. The list of companies that DEMO has launched, over some seventeen years, is nothing short of remarkable. What a record this conference has. You can read all about that at Demo.com. And, while you’re there, sign up for DEMOfall ’07 in September in San Diego. I’ll be there with bells on.

Here’s a selection of some on my (bad) photography from last evening. Hey, it’s not easy trying to swill wine with a notebook in one hand and a camera in the other! ….while engaging in charming banter 🙂 Well, trying to, anyway.