Univ of MD Technology Startup Boot Camp

I saw this posted by our friend Zvi Band over on StartupTweet this evening and wanted to pass it along to all of you.  The University of Maryland is hosting it’s Technology Start-Up Boot Camp on September 12th at the Student Union on the College Park campus.

According to the event page

• Learn how to launch a technology venture from the ground up
• Discover university initiatives that can help you bring your ideas to market
• Find out how to raise capital
• Identify the best ways to safeguard and manage your intellectual property and assets
• Gain insight for writing a great business plan and how to market technology products

The agenda they have and the line up of speakers are quite impressive.  The sessions are as follows:

• Commercializing Technology through University Partnerships
• Bootstrapping a Tech Company
• Launching and Funding a Biotech Venture - A Founder’s and VC’s Perspectives
• Marketing for Technology Ventures
• Breakout 1A – Securing and Managing Intellectual Property: Best Practices in Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Protection
• Breakout 1B – Safeguarding Your Assets: Negotiating Employment and Equity Agreements, Raising Capital, and Protecting Your Innovation
• Breakout 2A – Authoring a Great Business Plan
• Breakout 2B – Grants: Secure Seed Funding and Keep Company Ownership

There looks to be a lot of great information provided.  I am so glad Zvi posted this and I am registering to go and cover the event.  The registration is free to alumni and $75 otherwise.

AOL Acquires SocialThing

I got a message late last night from Frank Gruber, product manager of MyAOL, pointing me to his post where he announced the acquisition.  AOL has been in the news a bit lately, most notably for cutting back some programs that were no longer part of the vision and not contributing to the bottom line.

Apparently there has been a lot of thinking going on over at AOL as to the direction the team wanted to take

After spending the better part of the first quarter of 2008 contributing to an ideation process around our current products, it quickly became clear that lifestreaming would be an essential part of any social product experience. Facebook, Bebo and MySpace have all placed a lifestream front and center to help users stay on top of all their social news. As the ideation process concluded AOL acquired Bebo for a large sum of money and some of our thinking was put on hold for a bit, but not put to waste. I am constantly looking at new products and when I saw the user experience, mobile version and social feed functionality of SocialThing I thought it might make sense to bring them into AOL as part of our lifestreaming efforts. So I introduced them to AOL executives as soon as I could.

It is nice to see the company taking a look at integrated efforts for their properties and not simply having a yard full of toys and not knowing what to do with them.  Yahoo has become famous for this by rounding up the likes of Flikr and Delicious and while letting them progress and grow, is seems a mish mosh of stuff.  On the other hand is Google, who on the surface seem to be working toward and integrated product line.  So it is good to see AOL making a concious effort to tie in their products they have built and the ones they are acquiring.

Here is a video Frank took at Techcocktail in Boulder with a interview with the SocialThing team and what they are all about.

Lets all wish Frank and his team over at AOL good luck on the work they have a head of them.

Filling in on The Aaron Brazell Show

I am inviting everyone to tune in to listen to the Aaron Brazell show this Saturday night at 9pm.  Aaron is out of town and I will be sitting in the hosts seat on the show and chatting with Ben Yoskovitz.

Ben is the founder and CEO of Standout Jobs. With the economy in a downturn, and unemployment at a dangerous level, finding great jobs is at the forefront of a lot of peoples minds.

What can be done to stand above the competition? What industries are really hopping right now (there really are some!).

Come out Saturday night and join the show at 9pm EDT. If you can’t make it or are time-shifted, subscribe in iTunes.

I am looking forward to all of you joining in on the chat room and also calling in to chat with me and Ben

The START Conference 2008, Notes and Takeaway

I am fresh off my trip out to the Bay Area where I attended the 2008 Innagural START Conference.  It was put on by Jefferey Veen, formerly of Google and Adpative Path, along with Bryan Mason, COO of Adaptive Path .. until last Friday :).

When I first saw the link to the conference I headed over to see a great lineup of speakers and what seemed like a lot of great content that would be presented.  Then I saw the $200 price tag and knew I had to go.  It was well worth it and am looking forward to more of these events in the future.

The morning sessions included Ev Williams of Twitter, Mena Trott of Six Apart, and Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress.  It was a lot of pretty cool insight as to how they started and became successful.  One thing I took away from many of these sessions was that what you start out to do is not always what you end up doing and what becomes successful.

There were a lot of other great speakers and panels throughout the rest of the day and into the afternoon.  One was one composed of a lawyer, accountant, and a HR professional that gave a lot of good insight and advice to the budding entrepreneurs in the audience as to what to be prepared for and things to make sure were in place as we head off with our next great idea.  Here is a few items they discussed:

• chain of title issues
• non compete agreements
• ip ownership
• corporations are better for later funding events
• llc - more flexibility in organization and allocating profits

The afternoon was just as good (thanks to some awesome Blue Bottle Coffee on one break followed by a great microbrew beer on the next ) with some really good talks by Marc Hedlund, CEO of Wesabe, and Om Malik, of GigaOm.

Marc had some great advice as well as some funny notes.  He told the audience that there are two great ways to get VC funding …

1.  Call them and scream servers are melting, cant talk now

2.  Or if they call you, simply say “No thanks, we dont need your money …

both great ideas and got quite a laugh out of the audience.  Om Malik also had some sage words for all in attendance.  He said that he was very disapointed in the simple incemental steps the tech industry has taken.  he said he expects and looks for some big steps, something new, not re hashed ideas.  When asked “What have you seen in the last year that was interesting” he responded “nothing”. He also probably had the statement of the conference “New ideas come from your heart, not your wallet”.  How true this is.  It really hit a chord with everyone, evidence the swarm of tweets on it after he spoke.

Overall, it was a great time.  Met a lot of great people, many from back east which was cool.  The conference was put on very well with twitter and meebo chat rooms to allow the audience a little bit of participation.  The food was great, the venue was great, and the people were great.  For $200 it was money well spent and I can imaging I would love to go back again next year.

Event: The Future of Software

Potomac Tech Wire, a local online tech publication

covers technology stories in the greater Washington D.C. region in an objective and independent manner.

is putting on a great looking event on September 5th, 2008 called “The Future of Software” with sponsorship help from the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority.

The Future of Software” event is part of the Potomac Tech Wire breakfast series that brings together senior executives in the Mid-Atlantic to discuss technology issues in a conversational, roundtable environment moderated by the editor of Potomac Tech Wire. The two “Future of Software” panels will examine the major trends and issues facing the software sector, including Software-as-a-service, open source growth, business models, trends in enterprise software and venture capital.

The have a great lineup of speakers across two panels, The Future of Software Panel and Venture Capital: Investing in Software.  Here is a list of the panelists

The Future of Software Panel (8:00 AM - 9:00 AM)
Andre Boisvert, Chairman, Zenoss and Infobright (Former President of SAS Institute)
Todd Bramblett, CEO, LeverPoint
Greg Gershman, VP Engineering & Search, ODEO (founder of Blogdigger)
Barg Upender, Founding Partner, Intridea
Moderator - Paul Sherman, Editor, Potomac Tech Wire

Venture Capital: Investing in Software (9:30 AM - 10:30 AM)
Carter Griffin, Partner, Updata Partners
Harry Gruner, General Partner, JMI Equity
Don Rainey, General Partner, Grotech Ventures
Moderator - Paul Sherman, Editor, Potomac Tech Wire

The registration fee is $75 and you can go to register for the event HERE.

Event Details:

September 5, 2008
Ritz Carlton, Tysons Corner
1700 Tysons Boulevard
McLean, VA  22102

Phone Inquires: 202-546-8903

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