May 16, 2008
I just spoke at the Social Rockstar Workshop at Busboys & Poets in Washington, D.C. about Social Media & Blogging. It was a great conversation and thank you to everyone that attended. I have uploaded to docstoc the online document sharing site for anyone that would like to take a look at the presentation.
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May 16, 2008
Saturday... Saturday ... Saturday! Start your engines as Threadless.com, a Chicago-based skinnyCorp operated company, will be hosting a Pine Wood Derby race called the THREADLEMANSS. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to get SOMEWHAT FRANK car ready for the race but I did get my friend Carlos Pero, whose son was undefeated this year in the Cub Scouts Pine Wood Derby, to lead the TECH cocktail RACING effort which is powered by coloring.com.
Carlos is featured this week on episode 25 of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV as he previews the TECH cocktail car and shares some Pine Wood Derby knowledge. Thank you Carlos for your help. You can cheer on the TECH cocktail car this Saturday, May 17, 2008 as Threadless will be streaming the derby live.
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May 15, 2008
If you are down in Atlanta, Georgia today and tomorrow you might want to swing into the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair which is taking place. The worlds best young scientists, including many Georgia students will all be on hand showing off their technology and engineering masterpieces. Check out the video below for a quick preview.
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May 13, 2008
I will be speaking about social media and blogging in May and June at the following events:
Social Rockstar Workshop - May 16. 2008 - Washington, D.C.
I will be speaking about social media and blogging and making some references to its use in the corporate environment of AOL, Tribune and Classified Ventures where he has lead blogging & social media initiatives. There are a number of local D.C. area social media experts which will be offering perspective followed by workshops.
TECH cocktail CONFERENCE TECH cocktail CONFERENCE - May 29, 2008 - Chicago, IL
I am co-hosting our first TECH cocktail CONFERENCE bringing attendees access to a day full of amazing speakers, great perspectives and advice in an intimate environment where speakers are approachable. The goal of the conference is to assist attendees by bringing them essential business startup tips, advice and knowledge from a super-cast of successful founders, developers and entrepreneurs. It should be a super day followed by our popular TECH cocktail Chicago 8 mixer event. Use the discount code: somewhatfrank to save on your ticket!
BlogPotomac BlogPotomac - June 13, 2008 - Falls Church, VA
I am giving the lunch keynote on social media Friday the 13th for the first BlogPotomac event. BlogPotomac seeks to provide a local “un-conference” on best marketing practices for the social media community in the D.C. metro area.
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April 5, 2008
The Illinois I.T. Association CityLIGHTS 2008 Awards Gala took place in Chicago, Illinois on Thursday, April 3, 2008. The event was held at Union Station which you might recognize from the epic scene from the movie The Untouchables where Kevin Costner saves a baby carriage while also shooting up the Al Capone gangsters on its marble steps. While did not save any babies TECH cocktail, the community building startup that I co-founded with Eric Olson, was nominated for the CityLIGHTS Award for its positive impact in connecting the Illinois technology community. I am please to report, that TECH cocktail took home the hardware. I was deeply humbled by winning the award as it serves as validation that all the long hours and hard work is truly helping to sculpt a better connected local technology community while helping to amplify that same community to the world.
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March 27, 2008
If you are in the Washington, D.C. area, mark your calendars for BlogPotomac, a one day event aimed at providing advanced marketing insights beyond the average social media 101. BlogPotomac will be held on Friday, June 13, 2008 at the State Theater in Falls Church, Virginia. BlogPotomac seeks to provide a local “un-conference” on best marketing practices for the social media community in the D.C. metro area.
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March 21, 2008
I am pleased to announce TECH cocktail DC 2 will be Thursday, April 24, 2008 in Washington, DC. The social mixer event will look to unite the DC, Maryland and Virginia bloggers, technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and other business professionals interested in the technology arena for an evening of fun as we showcase and amplify the local tech scene.
Here are the details:
Date: Thursday, April 24, 2008
Time: 6:30pm - 9pm
Venue: MCCXXIII: 1223 Connecticut Avenue, NW - Washington, DC 20036 (Map)
Cost: $0 - It’s free!
RSVP: techcocktaildc2.eventbrite.com
The event is sponsored by AOL and Viget Labs - and there are a few sponsorship spots open so reach out if you are interested in supporting the movement. Startups will be showing off their stuff at the event and there are still a few demo spots open so let me know if you are interested. It should be a great time.
Also don't forget...we are hosting a TECH CONFERENCE on May 29th - SIGN UP TODAY!
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March 20, 2008
I have been to a number of industry events and I don't know how many times I either run out of cards are find myself cardless but technology has made it a lot easier to connect. LinkedIn recently joined Facebook and a number of other sites that have created iPhone experiences which makes it pretty easy to contact people and connect immediately thus online identity has replaced one of the features of offline identity - the business card.
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March 9, 2008
Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed today at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas. This is the second time I have seen Mark Zuckerberg speak in person as the first I recorded at TechCrunch40. Unfortunately, this time though I am press I was not able to get a seat in the main room where Mark spoke. Bummer. Sarah Lacey the author of a Business Week cover article as well as a book on Mark Zuckerberg interviewed Mark.
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March 9, 2008
Last night at SXSW in Austin, Texas I waited in line for about an hour to get into the 16 Bit event at Scoot Inn. After nearly getting to the front door, I ran into Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV. Gary was fed up of waiting in line and jumped out and proposed we head to our hotel and drink some wine he brought in. I thought it was a super idea. So I jumped on a pedicab with Kristen Nicole from Mashable and Brian Solis from Bub.blicio.us. What happened next was epic...
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March 8, 2008
On a clear, crisp evening in Boulder, Colorado over two hundred technology enthusiasts piled into The Foundry Billiards Club to better connect and amplify the technology signal of the region. The event, TECH cocktail Boulder in partnership with DEMO, showcased five startups from the local area. The event was sponsored by Boulder-based Lijit and Chicago and soon to be also Boulder-based skinnyCorp - thank you both!
Since TECH cocktail is one of my own creations with co-founder Eric Olson, we were really enjoyed the evening getting to hangout with some of the technology "movers and shakers" in the Denver/Boulder area. For more details check out the official TECH cocktail Boulder 1 photos and event wrap-up article. Read on for more on the startups that demoed at TECH cocktail Boulder.
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February 26, 2008
I returned to may hometown last week to co-host TECH cocktail Chicago 7. The event pulled in about five hundred technology enthusiasts, founders, startups, bloggers and VC's. As a facilitator of the event is it gratifying to see the community come out in such numbers.
The evening was kicked off with some TECH cocktail news which included the release of the newly revamped TECH cocktail website and the announcement of the first annual TECH cocktail CONFERENCE. Both of which were conversations points throughout the event but the real focus was on six fresh new Midwest startups that showed off their stuff at the event.
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February 21, 2008
I am pleased to say that TECH cocktail, the events startup that was created by Eric Olson and I back in Ma y 2006 has made a couple of exciting moves today by launching a substantial redesign of the TECH cocktail website that we have been working on for the last couple months. In addition, you might notice that we also have announced the first ever TECH cocktail CONFERENCE (or TECH CONFERENCE for short) which will take place in Chicago on May 29, 2008. Register now - it should be a great event!
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February 18, 2008
My friend Noah Kagan is hosting another CommunityNext conference called CommunityNext: Next Generation Media. I attended the first CommunityNext early last year at Stanford. This time CN will be in West Hollywood on March 29, 2008 and will be focusing on the new and social media that has been popping up across the Web. Speakers include Robert Scoble, Veronica Belmont, Brian Sugar and many others.
If you are interested in attending the event it pays to be a SOMEWHAT FRANK reader because I can offer you a discounted ticket. Just visit the CommunityNext website and when asked for a promo code tell them that "frankrules" and you should see a nice little ten percent discount in price.
If you have not already check out the 2008 web and technology conference calendar.
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February 7, 2008
I am pleased to announce that TECH cocktail will be making its first appearance in Boulder, Colorado. TECH cocktail Boulder 1 is another big step forward for TECH cocktail for another reason besides the obvious one of expanding to a new area. TECH cocktail Boulder 1 will be the first event we are putting on in partnership with the DEMO conference. Yes, the DEMO that just attended last week near Palm Springs.
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February 2, 2008
This past week at DEMO, I bumped into social media expert, blogger and co-author of the business blogging book Naked Conversation, Shel Israel. He had just announced his new video gig working with Robert Scoble to build up a video network called FastCompany TV. Shel was testing out some HD camera equipment and I was actually wearing a head cam so I sat down to chat with him on camera for five minutes about his new show GlobalNeighbourhoods TV (GNTV) which he recently explained on his blog.
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January 30, 2008
After another eventful evening, this time at the traditional DEMO Jam Session event, day 2 of DEMO08 was another intense day of product launches. Once again, rather than reviewing every single company that launched a product I will offer some tidbits and analysis from day 2.
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January 29, 2008
After an evening mixer last night which helped to get everyone together DEMO08, as its name implies, was filled with lots of demos. Rather than review every single company that launched a product today I will give you a brief overview of each one. Overall, I was impressed by a couple of pen-like gadgets, a few enabling technology sites, a couple video sites and of course mobile products.
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January 28, 2008
Tomorrow morning I will be heading to Palm Desert, California (west of Palm Springs) to attend the DEMO 2008 conference. I am excited to see what this years event has to offer. Some of Somewhat Frank's past DEMO conference coverage included the launches of both Moobella and Blurb.
If you are also headed to DEMO and have a new product you would like me to look at or just want to sync up at the event please drop me a comment, email or direct Twitter message (here is some help on direct messaging if you need it).
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January 25, 2008
Israel is known to be a hotbed for Internet startups. Though I have never visited Israel thanks to the California Israel Chamber of Commerce 15 Israel companies will be visiting Silicon Valley starting February 4, 2008 as part of a week long road show called the IsraelWeb Tour.
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January 22, 2008
I am pleased to announce that TECH cocktail Chicago 7 details have just been posted on the TECH cocktail web site. This is the seventh TECH cocktail in Chicago and ninth event overall since Eric Olson and I founded the community building startup TECH cocktail in 2006. RSVP now for TECH cocktail Chicago 7!
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January 14, 2008
It is time to start planning your 2008 conference schedule. Last year, I pulled together a list as 2007 brought us many new conference opportunities. To make it easier to plot out your conference roadmap this year I have once again compiled a list of some of the best web 2.0, technology, design, marketing and innovation conferences and events scheduled in 2008.
If you are a conference organizer interested in having Somewhat Frank as media sponsor or if I have left an event off the list please contact me. This is meant to be a living blog post. 2008 is going to be busier then ever - happy conferencing!
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December 3, 2007
There are a number of women involved in the technology industry, an industry which is made up of predominately men. I want to point out a few women in technology movements.
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November 9, 2007
Finding people on the Web can sometimes be difficult. Many people turn to Google to search for people but unless someone is very active online it can be tough to find people. In addition, there are so many social networks that do not index well on Google. Wink, a Los Altos, California based startup, tries to make it easy to find people online.
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November 5, 2007
What are the Crunchies? No, these aren't little creatures. The Crunchies are a first annual competition and award ceremony for the most compelling startups of the year. TechCrunch, Read/Write Web and GigaOm have teamed up to bring the Crunchies. It appears that an awards ceremony proceeded by champagne popping will be in order. Who will you nominate of the Crunchies?
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November 4, 2007
How can you engage your client community via blogs and social media? Last Thursday, I spoke on a panel at The New New Internet Conference to discuss this very question. The panel consisted of Gary Vaynerchuk video blogger at Wine Library TV and Director of Operations at Wine Library, Geoff Livingston blogger at The BuzzBin and author of Now Is Gone and Rohit Bhargava blogger at Influential Marketing and author Personality Not Included and myself blogger at Somewhat Frank, co-founder of TECH cocktail a community-building event startup and product manager of myAOL. If you want to find out about social media you best watch the video and learn about blogging, engaging social media and hustle 2.0!
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November 2, 2007
The DC area was looking a little more like Silicon Valley this week, welcoming a number of prominent bloggers, social media consultants, tech company product managers, startups, VC's, and more - well, with the exception of all the dark suits in the audience which made it a great Silicon Valley/DC mashup scene. Such was The New New Internet Conference - Web 2.0 for Business, presented by Potomac Executive Biz at the Reston Hyatt on Thursday, November 1st.
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October 27, 2007
I spoke a few weeks ago at the Widget Summit in San Francisco on a panel dedicated to discussing the personal homepage space. The session was an hour long discussion with a cast of industry experts. I had a chance to get ahold of a video clip of my introduction. Additional footage will be coming out soon but I wanted to preview this video introducing myAOL to the Widget Summit crowd.
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October 22, 2007
I am pleased mention that TECH cocktail 6 has been announced and tickets are going fast. Just as a refresher, TECH cocktail is the social mixer founded by Eric Olson and myself in May 2006. This will be our sixth Chicago event and eighth overall (DC and Boston). I look forward to heading home to the Windy City to host this event. It should be a great time.
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October 15, 2007
I spent the day at the 2007 Widget Summit today as I spoke on a session about Personalized Homepages. The day was filled with some excellent session about, as you might guess widgets of all ways, shapes and forms. Widget Summit closed day one with a launching pad.
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September 7, 2007
TECH cocktail Boston took place last night in the shadow of Fenway Park and brought the Boston tech scene together. With about 400 people in attendance, TECH cocktail Boston brought together a number of startups, entrepreneurs and technology enthusiasts for an evening of food, drinks and passionate conversations. It was pretty wicked!
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August 31, 2007
BlogDay is here again. BlogDay is the one day celebration of the blogosphere created by Nir Ofir also of BlogTV fame. BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On BlogDay bloggers highlight or recommend five other blogs to their blog visitors aiding the discovery of new blogs on the Web.
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August 22, 2007
Planypus (planyp.us), a startup co-located in Chicago and Washington, DC, offers friends and family the ability to create collaborative plans. Think of it as a wiki for your social life. Today Playnpus has announced the closing of its Series-A financing. What are they going to do with the money?
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August 16, 2007
What's new new on the Internet? If you are looking for a conference to help you find out you might want to check out this years The New New Internet Conference on November 1, 2007 in Reston, Virginia (northwest of Washington, DC).
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August 13, 2007
Last week I mentioned that TECH cocktail, an event I co-founded with Eric Olson, was coming soon to Boston and now I am pleased to announce that you can now sign-up for TECH cocktail Boston. We’re bringing TECH cocktail to Beantown (Eric's hometown) and it's bound to be wicked!
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August 6, 2007
TECH cocktail, the tech mixer aimed at amplifying the technology signal in under served communities and having fun doing it, is going to be stopping in its third city soon - Boston. Ironically, GigaOm recently published an article highlighting some of the startup activity in Boston and that is exactly...
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August 5, 2007
Photo of the Week: Barry Bonds hit home run 755 last night in a game vs. San Diego tying Hank Aaron for most career home runs in Major League history. John Feeley was in attendance and captured history with his zoom lens in this shot (shown above). Somewhat Frank Weekly...
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July 31, 2007
Gary Vaynerchuk, the host of WineLibrary.com's video blog Wine Library TV is a pretty entertaining guy. I got a chance to see Gary's energy in action a few months back when he both demo'ed and sponsored at TECH cocktail DC 1. Gary's love for wine and charismatic personality has created...
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July 7, 2007
I recently attended Supernova 2007, a conference in San Francisco focused on innovation, and was interviewed by Adriana Gascoigne of Bub.blicio.us, Future Works and founder of Girls in Tech. The video interview (below) is found at the 3 minute 30 second mark on this 9:03 minute video clip. In the...
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June 30, 2007
Bub.blicio.us was in Palo Alto, California, yesterday covering the release of the iPhone at Steve Jobs' favorite Apple Store. This short video (above) highlights the day's events with interviews of Robert Scoble and Thomas Hawk. Interestingly, after all the iPhone mania settled down (around 7pm PST) I casually got in...
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June 29, 2007
If action packed coding is your thing, you might want to check out the Top Coder Challenge today. I did a call-out previously for this event. You can actually watch coding just like a sporting event via Webcast live from the Mirage Resort in Las Vegas, coverage will begin Friday,...
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June 2, 2007
The Next Web conference took place in Amsterdam yesterday (June 1, 2007) and brought together a large number of key web influencers for the one day event. Read/Write Web has covered the event wonderfully. I wanted to highlight a session (shown in the video above) where Kevin Rose spoke via...
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May 18, 2007
A few hours ago, TECH cocktail completed its first event in DC at the popular MCCXXIII bar (1223 Club DC, for the non Roman-numeral types). The event was packed with hundreds of guests mingling as the place rocked to music, wine, product demos and mingling. Over 225+ technology enthusiasts, VCs,...
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May 15, 2007
InviteForGood is a social event planner that links social events to charitable organizations so that guests can donate while responding to an invitation. InviteForGood is familiar to those of us who have ever worked with online gift-registries for weddings, except that, here, the registry allows guests to donate to selected...
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May 10, 2007
Twiistup took place last night (May 9, 2007) at Zanzibar in Santa Monica, California to bring together some of the Southern California technology community. Twiistup, previously highlighted on Somewhat Frank, was founded by Mike Macadaan with the help of Ryan Buckholtz. Twiistup attracted a large turnout which filled the bar...
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