SOMEWHAT FRANK

Thank you for stopping by Somewhat Frank, but I refocused my blogging efforts to Tech Cocktail

After spending five years (from 2005 to 2010) updating Somewhat Frank day and night covering the tech beat, web 2.0 and social media booms I decided in 2010 it was time to redirect all my editorial and writing energy to grow Tech Cocktail into a full-fledge media company. This move coincided with deciding to dive off the entrepreneurial diving board and quit my day job building social networking and personalization products for millions at Aol to go all in on my own ventures - life is too short not to.

It was a great run for Somewhat Frank which was mainly a one man army. At the height of Somewhat Frank's prominence it was rated a top Web 2.0 blog along with the likes of Tech Crunch, Read Write Web, Mashable and CenterNetworks. Somewhat Frank was even referenced in Gary Vaynerchuk's NYTimes best selling book Crush It, on page 86 - and in Gary's rap video. I am proud of what Somewhat Frank was able to accomplish rolling solo. At it's height, Somewhat Frank had over 160,000 RSS and email subscribers. But it was hard to keep things going single handed so I've decided to focus on building a great team at Tech Cocktail.

What's my mission? To build Tech Cocktail into a must read hyperlocal, tech focused media powerhouse. Tech Cocktail is a literal "cocktail' of startup tech events, news and resources. Tech Cocktail also tours the country showcasing the latest tech innovations and ecosystems. I hope that you all come on over to Tech Cocktail and signup for our updates because I think you will really enjoy it. You can do so below by entering your email address or by clicking the Facebook connect button to signup.

Newsletter Signup:

For real-time Frank Gruber personal updates, short notes, thoughts, links, videos and photos please find me over on my Tumblr blog at: FrankGruber.me.

Just looking to connect? Follow me on Twitter: @FrankGruber
And/or you could hit me up on email too at: frank [at] tech dot co

Intel Insiders Kickoff 3rd Year with Summit in NYC

Last week, I was in New York for the kick-off of the third year of the Intel Insiders brand advisory board. Intel hosted a summit and all of the Insiders for the upcoming year got together and share advice, insights and bond over a cooking team building dinner. To find out more about the program, be sure to check out Ken Kaplan's article that shares insights about the program.

Since this is my third year being part of the Intel Insiders program, I gave a little background on my involvement over the years. This includes my experiences at the Baltimore WiMax launch, CES, Computex in Taipei, Barcelona for World Mobile Congress and visits to Intel's offices in both Silicon Valley and Portland, Oregon. This year, I am planning on heading to Intel's Developer Forum and App Up event in San Francisco in mid-September as well as CES. It should be another great year and I am looking forward to it!

What's the one thing you would most want to improve when it comes to your laptop or computer?

I love my Macbook Pro (MBP). It makes processing photos and videos a breeze. But like anything, my Macbook Pro is not perfect. I started thinking about this question and actually came up with two things that my Macbook Pro could improve on. They are listed below:

1. My computer gets hot! To remedy the situation I have installed smcFan Control an application that boosts the internal fan to cool the machine down.
2. The MBP keyboard is placed so far back the edge of the computer cuts into my wrists. To remedy the situation I often wear wristbands to help protect my wrists. These wristbands also represent my favorite colleges and professional sports teams. If you have a wristband you would like me to rock while I jam out on my computer please drop me a comment below.

Your turn. What would you most want to improve when it comes to your laptop or computer?

If you had the chance to travel for a year, where would you go?

If I had a chance to travel for a year I would like to spend some time in Kauai and some of the other Hawaiian islands.

Although, I'd also be happy just spending one month in Kauai this year. Even as a digital nomad, it may be tough to break away from the grind as I am in the middle of building a media company in TECH cocktail and also working on building out some other Shiny Heart Ventures products.

Photo of the Kauai beach by Jen Consalvo.

Digital Capital Week Coming to DC In June

I am pleased to announce the creation of Digital Capital Week (DCWEEK), a 10 day festival in Washington D.C. focused on technology, innovation and all things digital in our nation’s capital.

Over the last four years, I have spent many hours working on TECH cocktail with the mission of helping to better connect and amplify the local technology signal in local under served communities. In the process, many ideas have popped up but not every idea comes to fruition. The concept of a week long tech focused set of activities came onto my radar in the fall of 2008 after meeting with Vivek Kundra who was then CTO of DC. After a few meetings, fellow DC'ers Nick O'Neill, Peter Corbett, Shana Glickfield and others began to plan a tech week to take place in May or June 2009. As it turns out, other priorities crept into our lives so the tech week never materialized. Also with the new U.S. President elected, Vivek Kundra, moved up to take on a new role as Federal Chief Information Officer so working with us on a tech week in DC became a lower priority.

So while that tech week may have died, I am excited about the creation of DCWEEK, as iStrategyLabs has teamed with Shiny Heart Ventures (I am a Co-Founder) to co-produce the 10 days of festivities. DCWEEK has support from the WDCEP (Washington DC Economic Partnership), DC Office of Planning, CTDC (Cultural Tourism DC), OCTO (DC’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer) and the city’s BIDS (Business Improvement Districts).

DCWEEK is free to the first 2,000 to attend - registration is open - RSVP HERE. 

Ways You Can Participate:

1. Attend! Register here: http://dcweek.eventbrite.com and build an itinerary here: http://bit.ly/dcwcal. Most events won’t be populated until late Spring.
2. Host an event/session.
3. Lead/participate in a project - Digital Capital Week is not just 10 days of parties and sessions. It’s also an opportunity for you to collaborate on a project with others. If you’d like to participate in a project, please use the event RSVP to indicate your lever of interest.
4. Sponsor or Partner with DCWEEK - contact DJ Saul or Frank Gruber.

Be sure to connect with DCWEEK on Facebook & Twitter.

I will also be hosting a mega TECH cocktail DC that week on June 17th so be sure to RSVP for TECH cocktail too. It should be a fabulous week in June in Washington, D.C. so I would highly advise you to book your travel now and come out to DC for a week of festivities.

My Thoughts on the State of Entrepreneurship

Today I attended the Kauffman Foundation State of Entrepreneurship address in Washington, D.C. at the National Press Club. The event was packed with range of bootstrap entrepreneurs like myself to high ranking government officials. Kauffman President and CEO Carl Schramm addressed the crowd with a wealth of statistics on entrepreneurship which included the following:

• 36 percent of entrepreneurs reported reductions in head count in the past year; only 8 percent have added employees.
• Nearly two-thirds have seen their sales volume and their profitability decrease.
• 71 percent of entrepreneurs do not expect to add any new jobs in 2010.
• 61 percent of entrepreneurs think the economy is on the wrong track.

I covered the event on TECH cocktail (here). I also covered the event real-time on Somewhat Frank Tidbits (here).

The Best of CES: My Favorite Shiny Objects

 
   I just got back from the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, thanks to Intel and my participation in the Intel Insider program. It was a lot of fun and I saw lots of shiny objects and gadgets. I wrote a piece for TECH cocktail sharing the Best 13 at CES 2010. Of the list, I'd take every item on the list but if I had to pick the one I would probably purchase first, I would probably look into the new Sprint Overdrive Mobile 3G/4G hotspot made by Sierra Wireless. It leverages the Clearwire WiMax network to take advantage of the 4G unlimited speeds.I was at the Baltimore WiMax launch so I am looking forward to getting one of these devices to take advantage of it.

If I had to find the coolest gadget, it was probably the Alioscopy 3DTV at the Intel booth as it did not require 3D glasses to view in 3D. Though it has some restrictions on the content that can be turned into 3D it was a pretty impressive device. It was by far the most interesting 3D TV I saw because it was the only TV that was in 3D with the use of glasses. Check out this video of the 3DTV at the Intel booth.

Goodbye Aol. Hello Entrepreneurship In 2010!

This year my New Year's resolution is to be bold and what better way to do that than to start the year off by leaving the solid paycheck, benefits and comfort of a job at Aol. Today is my last day as an Aol employee as I have decided to move on to pursue some of my own entrepreneurial endeavors. It has been just over 3 years since I joined Aol to help bring some "Web 2.0 & social media" perspective and expertise to the Aol team. In Internet years that is about 10 years. My first task was to join the product development team responsible for the myAOL triple threat including a personalized homepage, a feed reader with bookmarking and an innovate recommendation engine. We then went on to launch it in 28+ countries before it turned one. More recently with the launch of AIM Lifestream I saw about 18 months of planning and strategy come to fruition which included work on AIM buddyupdates and the acquisition of SocialThing. I have racked up a lot of airline miles bouncing between DC and the West Coast. It has been a good run and a great learning experience working in a large organization and I have met so many great people along the way. I am proud of our accomplishments at Aol. As anyone who has ever worked at a large company can attest, it is not easy to launch a product in a big organization and I did it a few times in just three years. 

What will I be doing? 

Shiny Maine Lobster: Order Fresh Maine Lobster

I am excited to share some news about a Shiny Heart Ventures project I have been working on for the last couple months. My partner at Shiny Heart Ventures, Jen "@noreaster" Consalvo comes from a little town near Kennebunkport, Maine. She grew up there and her family still lives there. Her dad, Captain Dave is a retired Merchant Marine and Nuclear Engineer who has returned to his passion of lobstering - something he has been doing for over 45 years.

This summer we visited Captain Dave and his First Mate "@LobstahLady" Frannie in Maine and did some lobstering. While we were there they explained how hard lobstermen work and how they are basically being undercut more and more each day as the price lobsters continues to fall while it stays stable in restaurants around the country. This seemed unfair to all of us. Jen and I saw an opportunity to help them by cutting out the middle men and selling their fresh Maine lobster catch directly to consumers via the Web.

So I am pleased to announce the recent launch of Shiny Maine Lobster an online fresh Maine lobster shop where you can buy fresh Maine lobsters directly from Captain Dave and Lobstah Lady Frannie.

Up In The Air? Me Too

Yesterday I went to see the film Up In The Air with my family for the holidays.You can watch the movie trailer here. Overall I enjoyed the film as it was entertaining and it carries some underlying messages that are worth paying attention to. It's no wonder the film was nominated for six Golden Globes. The movie made me think and so I could not help but write down a few thoughts as certain elements reminded me of myself, especially the references to heavy traveling. It only seems appropriate that I am writing this article while cruising through the air at 36,000 feet.

TECH cocktail DC 7 Showcases Six Startups

This past week we had a super showing at TECH cocktail DC 7 which was previewed in the November issue of DC Magazine. It was great to be able to showcase another handful of local start-ups. With the holidays right around the corner it was great to be able to catchup with a crowd of a couple hundred DC area tech enthusiasts and share in a holiday cocktail.

The event was sponsored by Winamp which has been around awhile but is making a resurgence with it's latest offering. I remember using Winamp back in my fraternity house when we hosted events and festivities (think Animal House but in Indiana). It's great to hear it is continuing to improve the media player experience and platform. As an Intel Insider for going on two years I was also excited and thankful for Intel's support as a sponsor. Intel also kicked off a contest to win a HP Envy Beats laptop over on TECH cocktail. Good luck to everyone that enters, contest ends December 17th at midnight EST.

Tis The Season For 2 More TECH cocktail Events

It has been a rather eventful year for TECH cocktail, a community building media startup, that I co-founded in 2006. We are wrapping up another year with two more TECH cocktail events one in DC on Thursday, December 3rd and our final 2009 event in Chicago on Thursday, December 10th. We have some great sponsors like Intel and Winamp and more and about 20+ never before seen start-ups showing off their products or services in an expo style.

Wow, these events will be our 10th and 11th events this year. Hope you can make it to DC or Chicago for one of these events - tis the season to TECH cocktail.

Thankfulfor: Spreading Joy Through Gratitude

With Thanksgiving and the holiday season fast approaching, it is a time for reflection and gratitude. I thought it would be the perfect time to share with you a product I have been working on which is focused on spreading happiness through gratitude. Personally, this year has been full of change which is sometimes tough to handle, so "feel good" projects have helped me to focus on the good things in life.

With the help of my partner Jen Consalvo and our agile development team I recently launched Thankfulfor.com, a social online gratitude journal providing a forum for expressing gratitude routinely as a foundation for happiness and well-being. People come to the site and post what they are thankful for to their personal journal of thanks. People can also choose to send each Thankfulfor post to their social network on Twitter (each post starts with the #thankfulfor hashtag) extending the good vibes far and wide.

The DC Nationals' Social Media Opportunity

With baseball in it's final series of 2009 I wanted to share some of my thoughts on baseball, branding and social media, thoughts that have been brewing for a while. I currently live in Washington, D.C., a plane ride away from my favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, and within driving distance of the two teams with the worst records in baseball this past season, the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals respectively. They both lost a lot of games this year (98 and 103) which only makes me miss my hometown Cubbies even more but let's not forget they have been nothing less than disappointing for over a century. Even in 2003, where I was five outs away from doing Wrigley Field victory dance by heading to the World Series they found a way to break my heart. But every season, I still come back with even more resilience that it could be the Cubs year.

That said, due to my social technology and media background (my baseball skills probably didn't hurt either), I was invited to meet with the Washington Nationals executives last month at Nationals Park. I was honored to do so and in meeting with Stan Kasten, Bob Wolfe and others I realized that they are just a three year old start-up that spun out of what was the Montreal Expos organization. Call me an optimist but I think they have an almost clean slate, branding-wise, that offers them a huge opportunity to create a strong following both online and off. 

Wanna Free Ticket to PayPal's 1st Dev Conference?

PayPal is hosting it's first ever developer conference PayPal Innovate 2009 on November 3rd and 4th in San Francisco and I am excited to be heading out to take part in it.

The two day event includes a keynote by Tim O'Reilly keynote on Day 1 and GigaOm's Om Malik is doing a VC panel on Day 2. The event is sure to be well attended by developers, startups and entrepreneurs and more.

Today I joined Sudha Jamthe from the PayPalX team on BlogTalkRadio as she talked to Khurram Khan, Product Owner of Adaptive Payments from PayPalX TwitPay founder Michael Ivey to discuss the upcoming PayPalX Innovate 2009 conference. You can listen to the discussion here.

Vote me the next Panasonic Living in HD Insider

I am excited to be a finalist in the Panasonic Living in HD Insider program. What this means is that I am only one step away from being the next Panasonic Living in HD Insider! But I am going to need the help of my readers and community to help make this possible. Check out my video entry I submitted for the contest (below).

Here are a few ways you can help:

1. Vote for me here!
2. Help spread the word by copying the message below and set it on your status on Twitter and Facebook: I just voted for @FrankGruber for #LiHDInsider and you should too here: http://bit.ly/3TnfUB
3. Grab this code (below) and put it one you blog or other sites to help spread the word:

Oh and if I do become a Panasonic Living in HD Insider I get to give away one Lumix G1 SLR camera. So help me make it any you can get a chance to win too. Thanks so much for your help!