Somewhat Frank - PostRank (PostRank: Best)

Intel Insiders Kickoff 3rd Year with Summit in NYC

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:44:00 GMT

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! The video (below) is a quick look at our event in NYC this past week. Also be sure to check out this video by fellow insider iJustine as she shares the cooking experience at the Intel Insiders Summit.

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

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:11:00 GMT

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: 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. 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?

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 01:30:00 GMT

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

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:01:00 GMT

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: 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. Host an event/session. 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. 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

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:01:00 GMT

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). I also got to hear U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke share his perspective on the U.S. economy and entrepreneurship. He even went as far as to say: "We need to look to American entrepreneurs to get us on the road to financial recovery." As I mentioned on TECH cocktail, I thought event was well done and I enjoyed the conversations. I am thankful for the opportunity to attend. Though I am a little concerned as an entrepreneur to see a recurring discussion on the important role of entrepreneurs in creating new jobs, to save the American economy. As an American entrepreneur I am all about helping to fix the economy but it is not my overall goal as an entrepreneur to help create jobs. While I would love to see jobs created as a result of my work as an entrepreneur my first goal is building out an idea to solve a problem. Focusing on job creation as an entrepreneur is not what drives entrepreneurs. While I understand the importance of keeping Americans employed, I would like to see more of the discussion focused on entrepreneurship programs to help facilitate new ideas and innovation. What do you think?

The Best of CES: My Favorite Shiny Objects

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:41:00 GMT

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. In a similar fashion the Intel CUBE was a pretty amazing visualization of 20,000 different content sources and over 20 live feeds from global news sources and networks like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and Intel.com at the Intel booth (video below). Check out my photos from CES 2010. Lots of HDTV's at CES The Intel CUBE Intel Reader Samsung Booth Blush ceiling at the Google Party With the 2010 Intel Core Processor Family at CES 2010

Goodbye Aol. Hello Entrepreneurship In 2010!

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:34:00 GMT

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? Well to be totally frank, I am going to be hustling my butt off! As many of you know I started covering technology on Somewhat Frank back in 2005 within a week or so of the launch of TechCrunch. Early on I helped contribute by writing for them and watching as they became an established media company. In my own right, before joining AOL, I launched TECH cocktail to help amplify the local technology signal (and have fun doing it) with Eric Olson in 2006. We've enjoyed seeing it grow into a very well known brand with events in Boston, Boulder, Chicago, DC and more. Now I intend to grow TECH cocktail with more events as well as a regular flow of content. If you are an expert in finance, funding, marketing, PR, engineering, design, law, etc and would like to contribute some business tips to TECH cocktail please reach out - we would love to have you share your knowledge for other startups to learn from on TECH cocktail. Look forward to seeing more from TECH cocktail in the months to come.In addition to TECH cocktail, I have co-founded Shiny Heart Ventures, a startup focused on building products that remind us of the joys of life. Our first product was Thankfulfor, a social gratitude journal which launched in September and has been growing into a strong community. This past week we also launched Shiny Maine Lobster to help bring a family business online for fresh lobster direct to you by mail as I previously explained. We are never at a loss of ideas and will be launching additional products in the coming months so stay tuned - I am excited about it!I look forward to 2010 as an exciting year of opportunity. I look forward to growing these businesses as well as speaking about them with regularity at industry events. So if you are looking for speakers for an event please let me know. I want to thank Aol for the opportunity to work for them and bring products to millions of people globally. I am so proud of our accomplishments and look forward to Aol doing it's own start-up thing in 2010.

Shiny Maine Lobster: Order Fresh Maine Lobster

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:37:00 GMT

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. The site currently offers four lobster package options which include (packages are subject to change at anytime): Capitan's Share Lobster Package Elliot's Take Lobster Package Spitfire Special Lobster Package Summer Harvest Coop Lobster Package My favorite of course is the Summer Harvest Coop Lobster Package as it's the gift that keeps on giving as you get four shipments of lobster. Yum! The site also will sell Maine gifts which includes beautiful original Maine photos and merchandise. We will be filling this area out with works from Maine artists, photographers and craftsmen - so stay tuned. Below is a video which I created to help better tell the Shiny Maine Lobster story while we go out lobstering with Captain Dave in Biddeford Pool, Maine on a sunny summer day. Don't forget to check out Shiny Maine Lobster and reserve your piece of the seasons lobster catch. And don't forget to find Shiny Maine Lobster on Twitter & Facebook. Lobsters are on a first come first serve basis and limited, so act fast!

Up In The Air? Me Too

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:27:00 GMT

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. For those of you unfamiliar with the film, it is a romantic comedy / drama written and directed by Jason Reitman. In the film, Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney, is constantly on the road. I can relate to this on a couple of different levels as I have traveled close to 100,000 miles for the third year in a row, just like the road warrior Ryan Bingham (though Ryan usually triples my yearly totals). Ryan has a little airport security dance that kicks off his shoes, removes his laptop and belt all in own motion, just like me. Ryan also seems to be racking up the travel rewards and I would have to say I do the same thing. It's loyalty in hopes of one day relying on them to get me around as if money were going to be a scarcity. Ryan Bingham's job is to terminate people from their place of employment while sending them adrift in the best possible way he can. His messages to employees, while unfortunate, were also inspirational. He explained that while employment might be coming to an end, the door is opening to do something different - a new opportunity. While change is scary it is also what makes life interesting and fun, especially if you are like me and see the glass as half full. Life goes on for employees after a layoff or other life change as long as you see it as a second chance as opposed to a curse. It's all about the attitude and approach you take in life. Finally, Ryan like myself is a speaker. I often talk about leveraging the shiny objects of the Web to do what you love, in hopes of inspiring others. Likewise, Ryan Bingham has a clever "What's in your backpack?" speech which shares how experiences are more important than objects. He focuses on lightening the load in your backpack so you can enjoy life. I would have to agree. I'd much rather live life moving than sitting still. As Ryan said:"The slower we move the faster we die."I could not agree with him more. Sitting still is dying, while moving is living. Age is just a number and you really are as old as your mind thinks you are. I am probably about 24 right now, how old are you? You don't have to answer that out loud, but think about it. Your mind controls a lot more than you might imagine. Well, I had better go now, I am cruising at 36,000 feet and it's time to watch the in-air entertainment with my single serving snack mix, square napkin and styrofoam cup of hot tea. I am going to sit, back, relax and enjoy the ride. Life is too short not to do what you love.

TECH cocktail DC 7 Showcases Six Startups

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:35:00 GMT

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. The DC start-ups that demoed at TECH cocktail included:Bands In Town, a 2009 Launch Box Digital start-up, is a platform that connects live music fans to local live music through personalized recommendations and notifications within their pre-existing online music destinations.Budgetpulse a free personal budgeting software and savings goals tool helping consumers reduce debt, budget their money, and save for their financial goals. CYNCZ solves the nightmare of managing your unmanageable contacts spread across multiple address books such as emails, phones, social networks, and CRM systems so that you can access your contacts on any source/device, any time.Chumbonus an online job employment web site that incents people (referrers) to find jobs for their friends (chums) for a reward (bonus).GeniusRocket Select, a new product from GeniusRocket, is a new approach to crowdsourcing creative content that evolves away from a simple contest and instead harnesses the power of of top quality professional artists. I discussed crowdsourcing previously with Peter LaMotte and look forward to seeing more about this new product. Tweep a Twitter analytics and Twitter follower management iPhone app. It’s the only app (iPhone or otherwise) that provides a simple, digestible, and yet comprehensive view of how you are doing on Twitter.These are some great DC-based companies I wish them all the best of luck in 2010 and beyond. Check out some of the great official TECH cocktail DC 7 photos by photographer Jen Consalvo and the TECH cocktail DC 7 video by Mark Fitzpatrick (below). See you at the next TECH cocktail in Chicago 12 on Thursday, December 10th!