Mass Technology Leadership Council Blog

Maximizing Engineering Productivity - a peer to peer discussion

2012-02-10T10:28:00.005-05:00

The MassTLC software development community met at VMware in Cambridge for a well-facilitated conversation on maximizing engineering productivity. Brad Meiseles, Director of Engineering at VMware and Susan Rossnick, VP of Engineering at Kronos lead the discussion with about 40 techies from companies such as GSN, DYN, ZoomInfo, new big data player Kyruus and start-up Incrwd. Brad kicked off the conversation with a short presentation filled with witty quotes. Take a look here. The hot topic of the night was around establishing a work environment for success. From bright colored, open environments, big headphones and red lights to remove interruptions, no meeting Wednesday's at VMware and huddle rooms at the new Black Duck location in Burlington, the conversation was varied. However, most agreed that it is necessary to consider different work styles and personalities.

The conversation moved on to productivity, the use of SCRUM and measurement. There were strong opinions in the room on either jump in full force with SCRUM or DON'T! Following the rules is key to its success.

We are looking next at a seminar focused either on culture (which is a continuous discussion for this group!), fostering and realizing a culture of quality, continuous integration or SCRUM. Any thoughts on what would interest you and your team? Please drop me an email at Christine@masstlc.org.

Finding, Ranking and Tracking the Online Influencers Important to Your Business

2012-02-03T12:34:00.005-05:00

It was a great turn-out for this week's social media seminar focused on online influencers. Finding them isn't necessarily the hard part, it's getting them in your court to help promote your business. Mike Troiano @miketrap from Holland-Mark compared it to a cocktail party saying "it's the approach that matters". You can't just walk up to them and sell your services, it takes time and tact to make a good connection.

Pierre-loic Assayag, CEO and Founder from Traackr, kicked off the morning and shared results from a survey they conducted. He also shared the "10 commandments to influencer communication". Check out his presentation here.

Alan Belniak, Director of Social Media at PTC and Erica Ayotte, Social Media Manager at Constant Contact presented case studies on how they are working with online influencers to support their business. Both presentations can be found on Slideshare: Erica's presentation, Alan's presentation

Next, Mike Troiano from Holland-Mark shared his expertise from the agency side. He said there are 5 key steps to influencer management:
1. decide who you're talking to.
2. listen to learn how you can help them.
3. deliver content that does so.
4. build a relationship over time.
5. ask for what you want.

Mike's presentation is available for download here.

The presentations were excellent but the Q&A session is where the best practices and tips for success were shared. Thanks to all that joined in the discussion. If you would like to be part in the next discussion, please take this short survey and let us know what you would like to see next!

TAKE SURVEY!

MassTLC Report Predicts Massachusetts to Become World Leader for "Big Data"

2012-01-23T02:41:00.005-05:00

Download the Report -- Big Data and Analytics: A Major Opportunity for Massachusetts

As reported in today's Boston Globe, MassTLC has identified Big Data and Analytics as a major opportunity for Massachusetts, possibly on the scale of the 1990's software industry growth or the later telecom and Internet boom. The Council has identified more than 100 firms and 70,000 people employed in the field, and estimates the sector could grow by another 50,000 jobs in Massachusetts by 2018.

Massachusetts has become a major hub for companies that create and use "big data" and analytics technologies, a burgeoning technology sector that is expected to continue its explosive growth over the rest of the decade. In fact, the growing emergence of Massachusetts "big data" companies combined with deep university expertise in database management technology, and the presence of both established and startup technology firms give the state the opportunity to become the global economic hub for big data and analytics by the end of the decade.

According to the report, the proliferation of data generated by humans (e.g., text, voice, video) and machines (e.g., GPS, RFID, medical sensors), combined with social and other unstructured communications (e.g., social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn) is creating vast data opportunities, and a wave of new companies, to analyze and extract greater insight and economic value from this deluge of information.

"The Big Data sector is flying largely under the radar right now but this report makes it clear that it could our state's next big tech sector," said Tom Hopcroft, President & CEO of MassTLC. "If investments in this area continue at their current rate, we could see job gains approaching the scale of the early 1990's software industry growth or the later telecom and Internet boom."

According to the report, Massachusetts has all the elements necessary for success: a history of expertise in fields related to Big Data (including storage, security, and traditional data analytics); proven giants such as IBM, Oracle and Google already making Massachusetts investments in this field through acquisitions of companies such as Netezza, Endeca and ITA Software; a venture capital community with strong data analytics expertise; a vibrant academic research community, and a wealth of start-ups, such as Kyruus, Ginger.io, Paradigm4 and VoltDB, already gaining traction in the market.

"Massachusetts has 'Data DNA', a robust group of startups and established companies, as well as the presence of such complementary industries as healthcare, financial services, life sciences, consumer products, and on-line media" said Steve O'Leary, a co-founder of Aeris Partners and co-chairman of the MassTLC Research Committee. "We're in great position to lead, but we should be aware that other regions, most notably Silicon Valley, are moving quickly into this space."

The report identifies more than one hundred Massachusetts Big Data and analytics companies that currently employ some 12,000 workers. A variety of industries -- notably some of the state's biggest employers like healthcare, life sciences, aerospace & defense and financial services -- will increasingly utilize data analytics to grow their businesses. These Big Data users currently represent a complementary employment base of some 58,000 already using Big Data tools and results, for a total of 70,000 currently employed in Big Data jobs.

With its early start, the report estimates that Massachusetts is poised to see its big data workforce (including those creating analytics technology tools and applications within vendor companies as well as data scientists and data managers using analytics technology in healthcare, financial services, and other sectors) could grow to 120,000 jobs by 2018 -- if the region capitalizes on its early lead.

Download the Report -- Big Data and Analytics: A Major Opportunity for Massachusetts

Hard copies of the report will be made available at the Council’s 2nd Annual Big Data Summit on February 15 in Cambridge, MA (see www.masstlc.org for details). Read highlights from MassTLC's 2011 Big Data Summit by the Wall Street Journal.

The Summit will serve as the kick-off of MassTLC's Big Data Cluster.

MassTLC Launches Big Data and Analytics Cluster

2012-01-23T02:39:00.000-05:00

In the year since our first Big Data Summit (Read WSJ highlights), MassTLC has been quietly cultivating a new Cluster, focused on the Big Data and Analytics companies in Massachusetts, and are pleased to mark 2012 as the year for Big Data with our recent research report on the sector, Big Data and Analytics: A Major Market Opportunity for Massachusetts, our Second Annual Big Data Summit: The Big Data Disruption, and the launch of a new Big Data Cluster community.

In the context of MassTLC's 2020 Jobs Growth Challenge, Big Data is a significant opportunity for Massachusetts. Massachusetts leads the nation (#6, I believe) in recovering from the recession, based primarily on the information technology and other information technology intensive knowledge sectors. According to a recent McKinsey report, Big Data could be transformative, amounting to a fifth wave in the technology revolution after the mainframe, the PC, the Internet/Web 1.0, and the mobile/Web 2.0 eras.

MassTLC believes that the Commonwealth has significant and unique advantages and an opportunity to be the geographical hub of a massive Big Data and Analytics wave of innovation, company formation, job creation, and economic benefit for the region. We feel it's ours to lose and so are, as a community, going to do everything we can to foster the success of big data companies in Massachusetts, thereby cultivating our economic future.

Towards this end, MassTLC's Big Data Cluster seeks to be an active catalyst for growth and development of the Big Data and Analytics ecosystem in Massachusetts. The Council's unique role as an organization that spans the entire technology ecosystem places MassTLC at the heart of the Big Data tsunami. Below are some of the initiatives MassTLC is undertaking to foster the growth of this important sector:

Research - In addition to it's recent report, MassTLC will continue to study the region's Big Data and Analytics community through surveys, focus groups, and an Oracle-Delphi panel of leading thinkers to inform the community about the sector and leverage points for growth.

Summit - The MassTLC 2^nd Annual Big Data Summit and other programming provides an opportunity for thought leaders to share ideas while the general community learns about opportunities presented by the Big Data and Analytics tsunami.

Community - MassTLC is convening a community of Big Data thought leaders to continue the dialogue through a variety of member-only and public Cluster meetings, events, and initiatives. MassTLC Clusters enable the technology community to take a deep dive in a particular area, share knowledge, and build deep lasting relationships that lead to business growth.

Bump - MassTLC will integrate Big Data and Analytics across our many Cluster communities and key Council initiatives, thereby fostering knowledge exchange with other technology and customer segments. At MassTLC, we believe that innovation happens at the boundaries between communities where ideas often meet with novel applications. Our Clusters, Tech Tuesday, and our Innovation unConference are just a few of the Council's signature initiatives that support bump factor.

Recognition - MassTLC will encouraging Big Data and Analytics companies to participate in the Mass Technology Leadership Awards program to help shine a spotlight on the region's Data DNA.

Workforce - Though the MassTLC Education Foundation, we work to attract, retain, and develop the talent needed to grow Big Data and Analytics in Massachusetts.

Leadership - MassTLC will work to educate and advocate for policies that support the growth of big data and analytics technology development and application in Massachusetts.

Council members interested in getting involved in the Big Data Cluster should contact Sara Fraim at sara@masstlc.org. Non-members should contact betsy@masstlc.org to learn more.

MBTA, Hubway, and Food Trucks Are Focus of Web and Mobile App Contest

2012-01-13T15:58:00.000-05:00

The Commonwealth has teamed with the City of Boston on a contest called the MBTA + Boston Bikes Developers Challenge to develop Web and mobile software applications that provide innovative ways to access MBTA and New Balance Hubway information in real-time. The contest supports MassTLC's 2020 jobs growth challenge by connecting public needs with local technology talent.

The six week contest is geared towards the connections between the MBTA, Hubway bicycle rental stations, and the city's many food trucks. There are three areas of competition:

- Food Trucks - Web and mobile app developers are invited to create innovative applications that help residents get information on and locate Boston's Food Trucks. This app would ideally include menus, locations, and directions for getting to the truck via foot, bike, or MBTA.

- MBTA & Hubway Info Access - Web and mobile app developers are invited to create applications using the MBTA's real-time bus, subway, and commuter rail schedule information, and Hubway's Live Station Inventory Data.

- MBTA & Hubway Visualization - Web and mobile app developers are invited to create visualization-based apps using historical vehicle location data from the MBTA and Hubway bicycle rental stations.

Winners of the contests, which runs through February 24th, will receive prizes including a free one-year Charlie Pass for the MBTA, Hubway membership, and/or Food Truck passes.

MassTLC supports public contests and other initiatives that help connect the government as a potential "first customer" to the 400+ mobile, 100+ big data/analytics, and other technology companies in the Commonwealth. This crowd sourced approach achieves the dual purposes of tapping the best technology talent to help deliver public services while creating that essential bridge that could help local entrepreneurs and start-ups access a new market.

More info on the MBTA + Boston Bikes Developers Challenge. See additional ideas on the Mayor's New Urban Mechanics website.

The Massachusetts Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs also recently launched a mobile app development contest, dubbed the Get Outdoors Massachusetts Mobile Apps Contest.

State Sponsored Mobile App Contest Supports Goals of Council's 2020 Job Growth Challenge

2012-01-12T16:16:00.000-05:00

The Massachusetts Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) announced an innovative approach to meeting some of the Commonwealth's technology needs -- they are crowd sourcing their project by way of a mobile app contest. The contest supports a key element in MassTLC's 2020 jobs growth challenge.

A couple years ago, MassTLC put out a challenge to the tech sector to create 100,000 new technology jobs by the end of the decade. Since then, MassTLC's board and special task force on job creation has developed a framework of action organized around people, capital, and infrastructure. The task force's recommendations will be communicated to the Administration in early 2012.

One of the task force recommendations is for the Commonwealth to consider the role of the "Government as First Customer." It posits that there is a significant opportunity to connect local entrepreneurs/start-ups with state agencies in need of innovative technology solutions to critical state needs. The entrepreneur/start-up benefits with a first referenceable client, the state agency benefits by accelerating development of solutions to critical needs, and together we accelerate our local job growth engine by buying local.

As an example of how 'Government as First Customer' could work, EEA Secretary Richard Sullivan announced a contest that invites designers and mobile application developers to create applications to help the public find outdoor recreation hot spots in Massachusetts. Dubbed the "Get Outdoors Massachusetts Mobile Apps Contest," the competition is open to the public and seeks participation from application developers to create a mobile app that features Massachusetts outdoor and natural resources.

EEA's Departments of Agricultural Resources (DAR), Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and Fish and Game (DFG) have published geospatial data for developers to create a mobile app designed to map public lands, state parks, farms, public water and land access points, rinks, pools, and other outdoor venues for outdoor recreation.

MassTLC is a proud supporter of this innovative crowd sourcing initiative. "Start-ups are the jobs growth engine for our economy and a 'first customer' is often the difference between success and failure," said MassTLC CEO Tom Hopcroft. "With over 400 mobile and 100 big data/analytics companies and new entrants every day, EEA's crowd sourced approach achieves the dual purposes of tapping the best technology talent to help deliver EEA services and creating that essential bridge that could help local entrepreneurs access a new market." Several MassTLC Mobile Cluster advisory board members are serving on the judging panel that will select the winner.

The submission deadline is March 30, and registration is free. Entrants will compete for prizes including the opportunity to showcase their work to local technology executives. EEA will announce the winners on April 18.

View the official Get Outdoors Massachusetts Mobile Apps contest rules and information.

See also the recently announced MBTA, Hubway, and Food Trucks Web and Mobile App Contest.

Tremendous Turnout for Rapid Development & Deployment Summit

2011-12-16T09:35:00.003-05:00

Greater than 150 participants turned out for the Rapid Development and Deployment Summit presented by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council's Software Development cluster. This fast-paced conference covered a lot of ground in two keynote presentations and four panels.

Rapid change challenges software architects and developers

David Skok, General Partner, Matrix Partners, kicked off the morning with an overview of the challenges that rapid change has created for software developers and architects. His presentation included a discussion of the acceleration in the number of applications and users--and the technology trends that are disrupting the development environment.

As functions disappear, new opportunities emerge

Then, he delved into some of the implications:
- Incorporating new technologies, especially in combination, provides users with exceptional power but dramatically increases complexity for developers
- Everything is changing from the way developers build products to how companies distribute them to the ways in users access them.
- Self-service technologies are replacing personnel at various stages of the product development process.
- The proliferation of data has created a market opportunity for business intelligence applications that can provide actionable insights
- Proliferation of new products has produced lots of data--now users are seeking tools to turn data into actionable insights
- Consumerization of enterprise applications increases demand, usage and engagement
- Businesses are getting faster better applications sooner and less expensively

Mobility isn't what makes mobile interesting

Bill O'Donnell, Chief Architect, Kayak shared insights gained from his company's experience with mobile. Perhaps most interesting was the company's misconception about the use case for travel--and how they learned what users really wanted.

Kayak implemented mobile early on, and more than once. When the company decided to launch an IPhone App, developers incorrectly assumed that travelers would be most likely to use mobile when there was no access to other platforms. That is, when they were in an airport and needed to check a flight's status or change their plans.

Customers let them know they were wrong, dead wrong, via a feedback mechanism incorporated in the app, itself, that goes directly to the development team. Many complained that they weren't able to access the full feature set on mobile.

At first, developers questioned the feedback. Then they turned to the search data and learned that customers were using the mobile app the same way they used the web application.

So, they squeezed more features into the mobile app--and usage went up. To their surprise, users didn't seem to mind the small screen or that it took a lot of time to process transactions. Today, 15% of Kayak's traffic is mobile.

Check out Bill's presentation to see his perspectives about some of the challenges associated with being a development company in a mobile world, both technically and financially. That said, Bill predicts that mobile apps are here to stay because users like them. They're easy to find, easy to install, easy to maintain and don't use a lot of power. In short, the characteristics that make mobile apps desirable--have very little to do with their mobility.

Building high performance teams

The moderator of the breakout session on the Anatomy of a Team, Julia Austin from VMware, began by asking panelists to define high performing teams and followed with a series of questions. Panelists offered multiple perspectives on best practices for attracting talent, hiring the right people, increasing productivity, encouraging team cohesiveness, and motivating teams to do less glamorous projects.

Advice from the experts

A show of hands confirmed that software developers and engineering managers are in high demand, even in Boston and in this economy. To attract talent, panelists advised companies to know and promote their unique differentiation. When hiring mid-managers look for individuals that are building an app in their free time.

To increase cohesiveness, seed teams with members that excel at creating a community. To motivate teams to do less glamorous projects let developers fix it the way they way want it, earn the opportunity to do more interesting projects, or bask in users' appreciation of a problem fixed and a job well done.

Maintaining quality while moving fast

Much of the conversation on maintaining quality centered on Agile: advantages, disadvantages, and challenges. One advantage is that it forces developers to consider factors they might not otherwise have thought about. Another is that frequent testing of prototypes with users catches problems early.

Disadvantages include an emphasis on the short term, at the expense of the long term--and paradoxically the constraints imposed by a system that requires setting priorities in advance. One panelist said his company found that 3-week lead times are too confining for designers. Kanban, on the other hand, lets designers reorder their priorities so that they can focus on what they're doing.

Despite challenges, Agile processes universally favored

A major challenge is managing the technology deficits that emerge in infrastructure when the focus is on implementing new features. Panelists offered solutions ranging from incorporating "fixes" into each sprint to assigning a special project team to reduce the backlog to putting development of new features on hold.

Nevertheless, panelists appeared to agree that the value of quick sprints outweighed the costs. One panelist says he now advocates using small, localized additions of procedural code to add new functionality, rather than investing in re-architecting the product. His rationale is that it's hard to know in advance which features will prove valuable.

Another challenge is motivating developers to do peer reviews. One panelist suggested having incumbents "mentor" new employees. Another periodically has the whole team participate in code reviews after the daily "standups". A third delays implementing a new feature until a team member tests it and signs off on its quality.

Two additional sessions followed on aligning strategy with development and leveraging the cloud in a rapid dev shop. A video and blog post will follow shortly on the cloud session, moderated by Michael Skok of North Bridge ventures.

Rapid learning

Overall, the morning was outstanding. Panelists packed a lot of information into a short time--and audience members left with insights they could apply to their own work environments. Thanks to our sponsors and all who participatied. Look for future programming on agile, measuring engineering productivity and virtualization.

Guest post contributed by Barbara Bix, BB Marketing Plus

For additional commentary, please check out the blog posts from guest speakers below:
Active Endpoints blog post: http://www.activevos.com/blog/
Future of Cloud Computing blog post: http://futureofcloudcomputing.drupalgardens.com/blog/interesting-insights-masstlc%E2%80%99s-software-development-summit

MassTLC Member Dassault Systèmes Dedicates North American HQ: A New LEED-Certified Campus in Waltham

2011-12-13T10:11:00.000-05:00

MassTLC member Dassault Systèmes, a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, had quite the party this past Friday to dedicate their new North American headquarters in Waltham. The event included speeches by His Excellency François Delattre, France’s Ambassador to the United States, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray, Dassault Systèmes President and CEO Bernard Charlès and North America Managing Director Al Bunshaft, as well as a tour of the campus and demos of the company’s latest 3D technologies.

Located in Waltham, the award-winning 27-acre campus is heralded as a showcase for sustainable innovation, the creation of lifelike experiences using 3D, and has been LEED-certified, demonstrating the company’s commitment to conserving national resources.The campus was designed and outfitted with sustainable innovation in mind. More than 2,000 tons of recycled steel were used in construction and 61,000 tons of structural materials re-used as fill. The heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) units use a chemical-free electrostatic water treatment unit instead of chlorine. Overall energy use is reduced by 29 percent through a combination of high-efficiency rooftop HVAC units and boilers.

During his welcome address Bernard Charlès stated, “What you see behind me is not just a building. It is a living laboratory for our Dassault Systèmes vision. From this place, we will reach out to the world with our technology and services. This is where we will help creative people visualize solutions to the challenges that face the world, validate that those visions will work, and plan how to bring those visions to life in the most efficient, sustainable way possible.”

Al Bunshaft added, “We wanted to create a healthy work environment where people would love the space they work in, while promoting creativity and collaboration.”

A little bit about Dassault Systèmes: As a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, Dassault Systèmes brings value to more than 130,000 customers in 80 countries. A pioneer in the 3D software market since 1981, Dassault Systèmes applications provide a 3D vision of the entire lifecycle of products from conception to maintenance to recycling. The Dassault Systèmes portfolio consists of CATIA for designing the virtual product - DELMIA for virtual production - SIMULIA for virtual testing - ENOVIA for global collaborative lifecycle management, EXALEAD for search-based applications- SolidWorks for 3D mechanical design and 3DVIA for online 3D lifelike experiences. For more information, visit http://www.3ds.com.

Sustainable Practitioners talk "Green Marketing" at Energy Seminar

2011-12-13T10:08:00.000-05:00

A recent Harvard Study revealed that over the long term (18 years in the case of this study) highly Sustainable companies outperformed low Sustainable companies. These highly sustainable companies understand the holistic relationship between customer, employee, community, environment, and shareholder.

On Tuesday, December 6th, MassTLC hosted a panel of highly sustainable practitioners that are not just educating their customers, employees, and shareholders of their sustainable efforts, but engaging them and motivating them to make these practices personal. Jim Nail, founder of communications consulting practice Speaking Sustainability, led the discussion with panelists, Kristine Kalaijian, Director of Environmental Compliance and Sustainability, Philips Electronics; Monica Nakielski, Project Manager, Sustainable Initiatives, Partners Healthcare; Frank Marino, Corporate Environmental, Health and Safety Manager, Raytheon; and Susan Hunt Stevens, CEO and Founder, Practically Green.

Jim Nail opened the event noting that "green marketing" has low credibility with consumers and corporate social responsibility reports reach a small niche audience. A new approach is needed to reach broader audiences who are critical to a business' success and are increasingly interested in what the firm is doing to address environmental and social issues its operations impact.

Companies such as Unilever are making sustainability personal in order to motivate their workforce remarked Susan Hunt Stevens. She went on to describe how Unilever's campaign has given everyone in the company the title Head of Sustainability. Why is it so important for companies to engage employees and customers on this level? Raytheon, Phillips and Partners Healthcare all shared that they have set aggressive sustainability goals for the near term and will need their employees incorporating sustainability into their daily tasks to meet these goals. For example, by 2015 Philips will improve the energy efficiency of its overall portfolio by 50% and double the global collection and recycling amounts of their products, as well as double the amount of recycled materials in products. View Susan's presentation here

Kristine Kalaijian explained that sustainability at Phillips is broadly defined to encompass social and ecological goals throughout their different businesses of healthcare, lighting and consumer lifestyle. Philips defines sustainability as improved health and well being while respecting natural resources. Philips uses a specific framework that balances the Human Development Index with Ecological Footprint
Raytheon has also embraced the make-it-personal model by increasing employee awareness with a simple quiz and naming those that finish the quiz Energy Citizens. Taking it a step further Raytheon has around 12,000 Energy Champions embedded within the business who lead specific energy conservation and efficiency projects. View Kristine's presentation here

Monica Nakielski is new to Partners Healthcare and is rethinking the status quo which has been focused on environmentalism and buildings. Partners wants to tie together green teams with energized leadership to move beyond buildings and look at sustainability at a broader level that includes personal well-being. Sustainability has been embraced at the Chief executive level by the very nature of their business, since healthy people need a healthy environment.

So it sounds like everyone is on board right? Well not exactly, there are still challenges to overcome. For example, employees that do not want to change or do not want another check list item on their "to do" list may be harder to engage. Frank Marino talked about how Raytheon still has room to grow mainly since it is a conservative company that is risk averse. View Frank's presentation here

Phillips has used sustainability as a means for growth and innovation but larger projects where the return on investment is longer term and harder to measure can still get stalled. Monica Nakielski noted that the issues on the agenda of some Partners senior executives may not match what is top of mind for employees and part of the employee engagement process will require sharing and education of both groups.

So how do you integrate the skeptics? Social media can play a part. Raytheon is using an in house social media tool to help link together passionate individuals. Zimride uses gamification, Seventh Generation and Stonyfield give small rewards to customers. These types of programs also have metrics built in so the benefits are measureable for the company. Awareness of a company’s commitment to sustainability can also help employees and management engage. Raytheon has done a lot to green their dining areas. This is a place where all employees can see a demonstrable change. These beliefs that are being embraced in the workplace are then coming home with people. Phillips is encouraging this type of community engagement.

One key theme is that achieving sustainability goals requires more than information and a traditional communications approach that emphasizes broad distribution of messages. The goal needs to be to change the audience’s behavior to adopt sustainable behaviors. Susan Hunt Stevens referred to the work of Dr. Robert Cialdini and Jim recommended the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath. Both provide insights from academic research demonstrating that change often begins with a small action, not with a change in attitudes.

One thing has become clear in behavior change for employees, customers and even companies; they would rather fit in than get a reward. Bringing about this type of culture change can bring about big wins for companies bottom lines and also for the overall health of our population and environment.
To wrap up, the panelists noted firms whose sustainability communications they admire:
- Kaiser Permanente
- Cleveland Clinic
- Hewlett Packard
- Patagonia
- Nike
- Marks & Spencer

Mass Technology Leaders Join Governor Patrick on Innovation Economy Mission to Brazil

2011-12-06T13:20:00.000-05:00

MassTLC chairman Mohamad Ali, CEO Tom Hopcroft, and eight other MassTLC members will accompany Governor Patrick on his Massachusetts-Brazil Innovation Economy Mission next month. The trade mission, which includes 27 of the state's top business leaders (plus an additional 10 academic and 12 government leaders), is designed to encourage greater collaboration between Brazilian and Massachusetts companies, academic institutions, and government entities, resulting in greater economic benefits to both our economies.

(Delegation members at a trip briefing)

The mission is part of the Governor's effort to market Massachusetts to key growth markets and centers of innovation around the world, and supports the Council's goal of increasing tech sector employment in Massachusetts. Brazil, which already boasts one of the world's fastest growing economies, has recently emerged as new hotbed of technology innovation and entrepreneurial activity.

MassTLC is serving as the lead non-governmental tech sector organizer for this trip, as it did on a recent mission led by the Governor to Israel and the U.K. earlier in the year. MassTLC members will take part in roundtables, company visits and meetings with government, academic, and business officials - all designed to encourage new collaborations and investments that will support our efforts to grow the Massachusetts tech economy.

(Pictured left to right: Consul General Fernando de Mello Barreto, Ambassador Mauro Vieira, and Governor Patrick briefing the delegation)

"We are committed to competing for every job in every corner of the Commonwealth, and the world," said Governor Patrick, in the press release announcing the trip. "To continue our recovery, we need to position Massachusetts for success in growing markets like Brazil, to drive job growth and catalyze international investment."

The MassTLC team will visit Brazilian companies, universities and government leaders during stops in Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero. Last year, bilateral trade between Massachusetts and Brazil topped $475 million - representing more than $396 million in exports to Brazil and more than $80 million in imports to Massachusetts.

MassTLC President & CEO Tom Hopcroft featured on NECN discussing the trip:

The official delegation list is below.

GOVERNMENT DELEGATION:
Governor Deval Patrick
Secretary Greg Bialecki, Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development
Secretary Joanne F. Goldstein, Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development
Secretary Paul Reville, Executive Office of Education
Secretary Rick Sullivan, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
Senator Marc R. Pacheco, State Senator, First Plymouth & Bristol District
Susan Windham-Bannister, PhD, President & CEO, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center
Pamela Goldberg, CEO, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative
Patrick Larkin, Deputy Director, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative
Patrick Cloney, Executive Director, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center
Kenneth Brown, Executive Director, Massachusetts Office of International Trade & Investment
Josiane Martinez, Executive Director, Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants

ACADEMIC AND CULTURAL DELEGATION:
Dr. Dennis Berkey, President, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Dr. Robert Caret, President, University of Massachusetts
Dennis Carr, Assistant Curator, Art of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts
Jason Dyett, Program Director, Brazil Office, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University
Laurence Madin, Executive Vice President and Director of Research, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Dr. Bruce Magid, Dean, International Business School, Brandeis University
Dr. Dana Mohler-Faria, President, Bridgewater State University
Maria Muller, Deputy Director, External Relations, Museum of Fine Arts
Ben Schneider, Director, MIT Brazil, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Karina Xavier, Manager, MIT Brazil, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

BUSINESS DELEGATION:
Aron Ain, CEO, Kronos Incorporated
Mohamad Ali, Chairman, Mass Technology Leadership Council; Senior Vice-President, Avaya
Priyanka Bakaya, CEO and Founder, PK Clean
Brian Burke, Northeast Director of Government Affairs, Microsoft Corporation
Wayne Canty, President, Heat Trace Products, LLC
Bob Connelly, CEO and President Madico, Inc.
Robert Coughlin, CEO and President, Massachusetts Biotechnology Council
Walt Doyle, CEO and President, WHERE Inc.
Marcia Fournier, Founder and CEO, BIOARRAY Therapeutics
Chris Goode, Vice-President, Global Corporate Affairs & Public Policy, EMC Corporation
John Harthorne, CEO and Founder, MassChallenge
Winston Henderson, Vice President and General Counsel, Nano Terra
Tom Hopcroft, CEO and President, Mass Technology Leadership Council
Florian Hunziker, COO, Harmonix Music System
Edvaldo Morata, Managing Director of Corporate Banking, Sovereign Bank and Banco Santander
Linda Moulton, CEO, TRU Corporation
Steve Papa, CEO and Founder, Endeca
Robert Perez, Executive Vice-President and COO,Cubist Pharmaceuticals
Brad Rinklin, Vice-President, Global Marketing, Akamai
Kristen Rupert, Executive Director, Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) International Business Council
Dr. Ido Schoenberg, CEO and Chairman, American Well Corporation
Joel Schwartz, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Global New Business Development, EMC Corporation
Greg Shell, Manager, GMO LLC
Dr. Riccardo Signorelli, CEO and President, FastCAP Systems
Per Suneby, CEO, PMC Biotec
Kirk Sykes, President and Managing Director, Urban Strategy America Fund, L.P.
Andrew Tarsy, President and Executive Director, Progressive Business Leaders Network

Hundreds Pack Microsoft NERD for Tech Tuesday: Meet the Rockstar Developers of MA

2011-12-01T09:21:00.005-05:00

Last night's Tech Tuesday, Meet the Rockstar Developers of MA, was fantastic and truly showed what the Stay in MA campaign is all about. Over 300 people turned out, including over 100 computer science students from regions colleges and universities. There was a great vibe all night with so much buzz about the cutting edge technologies that are being created in the region.

(Pictured Left to Right: Dharmesh Shah, Walt Doyle, Jeremy Wertheimer and Vinit Nijhawan. Photo Credit: Dan Bricklin)

Kicking off with a panel of "rockstar" developers moderated by Vinit Nijhawan from BU and including Walt Doyle from WHERE, Inc., Dharmesh Shah from Hubspot and Jeremy Wertheimer from Google. Highlights from the panel included:

Create code everyday and hit send; get it out there fast.
Biggest hurdles of starting a company: rapid development and shaping expectations.
Finding the right team is crucial, and keeping them happy leads to further company success.

Following the panel were some shout-outs talking about some of the coolest new technologies coming down the pike for companies, including Black Duck Software, Telerik, VMware, MEDITECH, Microsoft, Big Belly Solar, Funkitron, AisleBuyer, and many more (download app at rockstarma.appguppy.com for full listing of exhibiting companies).

(Photo Credit: Dan Bricklin)

The latter part of TT was all about the networking. You could not move without hearing some great dialogue among the developers and soon-to-be developers. The action was also taking place upstairs on the 11th floor where we heard of at least 1 great candidate was being wooed by a rapidly growing company.

#RockstarMA continued to trend today and we’d like to see the dialogue continue. Dan Bricklin captured the night with pictures, if you were there, I’m sure you can find yourself in one of them. If you weren't take a look for a better idea of what you can experience next time.

And be sure to stay tuned for our next Tech Tuesday on January 17, 2012 to keep this energy going.

Dynamic Community Care Teams and the Role of Technology

2011-11-23T11:03:00.001-05:00

On Thursday, November 21, 2011, I attended the Mass Technology Leadership Council Breakfast Seminar, How Technology is Enabling Dynamic Community Care Teams. Rick Siegrist, the CIO at Press Ganey, began the morning with a discussion about integrated care. He explained that integrated care is not merely organizational legal integration or coordination of service. It is a patient-centered model that often involves coordination within and across multiple care teams as well as across community resources, especially in patients with serious or chronic illnesses.

Integrated care requires a continuity of relationships and familiarity with patients over time and must also take into account what happens to patients between visits with care providers. Providers must learn to look at the care they are providing from the patient's viewpoint. At the same time, patients must share responsibility for and become engaged in their own care. To help with the integrated care model, Siegrist explains that providers are now able to mine with web for feelings in addition to facts using what he called "The New Science of Sentiment Analysis," a process that analyzes customer opinions to extract feelings. Patient satisfaction surveys are a very meaningful database of information because when people are involved in a life and death situation or a trauma, their responses are likely to be more meaningful and honest because they have a strong personal connection to what occurred. Hospitals must take steps to respond to patient opinions and criticisms found in these surveys. If they don't take action, patients with negative experiences will broadcast them on Facebook or blog about them, creating larger-scale negative publicity that providers and hospitals did not have to deal with in the past.

Siegrist concluded with an example of "low-tech" integrated care, explaining that Harvard Vanguard, Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser, Dartmouth and the VA have begun to offer shared medical visits for patients. Under this model, eight to 12 patients, all of whom sign privacy agreements, gather with a doctor, a nurse, a behaviorist and a documenter for a 90-minute appointment. Patients (who may or may not have similar medical conditions) take turns being examined and all are present for questions and explanations by the provider. The documenter records the entire appointment. These shared medical visits improve access to care (patients might get an appointment with a sought-after provider next week instead of six months from now), encourage patient involvement (patients share information with each other about their conditions) and garner higher provider satisfaction ratings (because providers do not feel rushed to move on to the next appointment). Take a look at his presentation here.

Betsy Weaver, CEO of TPR Media LLC, discussed her company's recent launch of UbiCare (the name comes from the word, "ubiquitous"), a social media tool designed to enhance and streamline how healthcare connects with patients through Facebook, Twitter, text messaging and email. Weaver explained that US healthcare is facing irreversible change. Currently, quality of US healthcare is poor and costly, a combination that definitely needs to change. Healthcare's solution must improve outcomes and create cost savings for patients and providers alike. She launched UbiCare because healthcare must be where patients are. A recent Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that 79% of all Americans are online, six of ten have wireless connections, small screens outnumber big screens and one of every three US adults has a smartphone. She explained that the only people who really do not use the Internet are those over 70 years old without a high school education. Betsy's presentation is available here.

Ken Accardi, the CTO of iGetBetter.com, described how his company's software allows hospitals to put patient discharge plans online and track patient follow-up care more closely. It gives providers the ability to monitor patient pain levels and see whether they are taking prescribed medication.

Coming at the health care relationship from a different angle, Benjamin Bielak, CIO of Dovetail Health, said that his company's goal is to keep hospital admissions down and keep patients at home by developing an emotional connection with them, thereby reducing the risks of higher costs and potential illness stemming from hospitalization. Dovetail providers conduct an initial two-hour appointment where they ask patients what their emotional goals are. If a patient's goal is to attend his daughter's wedding, Dovetail works with the patient to try to reduce hospital admissions, keep the patient healthy and ultimately, to make his goal a reality.

Kathy Duckett, Director of Clinical Programs at Partners Healthcare at Home, told the group that her agency makes 3,600 home visits to patients each day, for a total of over 400,000 per year. Because PHH is a certified home health agency, it must abide by federal guidelines and regulations and is limited to providing skilled nursing visits to homebound patients. Despite these limitations, PHH must begin to think outside the box and has launched that Telehealth program which provides remote monitoring of 250 patients who are not homebound, but are frequently hospitalized. This program empowers patients to be more involved with their own care.

Finally, Marie Maloney, CIO of Senior Whole Health, spoke of the difficulties her agency encounters providing care to Medicare/Medicaid eligible patients with an average age of 74, many of whom are not connected to the Internet. They have adopted a member-centric model that provides care at the level deemed most appropriate for the patient, either annually, every six months or twice monthly. Forging a relationship with these patients and their families, only 46% of whom are English speaking, is the "secret sauce" to engaging these frail, uneducated seniors. Senior Whole Health employees speak many languages and care providers often come from the culture or community in which they are working.

So what is a dynamic community care team? First and foremost, it must be focused on patient needs and must respect what the patient wants. It requires participation from all those who are involved with a patient-providers, the patient, family caregivers (to the extent the patient wants family members privy to health care information), home health aides, and care managers. Ideally, a dynamic community care team will have a centralized record keeping system, where all those involved with a patient's care can share access to information on a real time basis.

But questions and issues remain with respect to the use of technology to enhance patient care real time. Some providers, for example, are concerned about the use of email. If a patient or caregiver emails a provider about a high blood sugar level, for example, and the provider is unable to respond immediately, is the provider liable if something happens to the patient?

There is also a debate about what information should be shared. Providers want information they can act on; information overload is not helpful. Perhaps most helpful would be an easy-to-use system that can adapt to provide information providers want, based upon the changing needs of the patient. Unfortunately, this kind of system takes time and money to build. For it to work effectively, patients and providers must also be convinced of its value. While we are waiting for a better system, providers must continue to try to provide more integrated care, keep things simple and forge an emotional connection with patients to keep them invested in their own care.

Sharon Patton

November 22, 2011

Integration in a Fragmented Mobile World

2011-11-17T13:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's mobile cluster seminar, Integration in a Fragmented Mobile World, brought some great interactive discussion on developing and deploying among different operating systems, devices, and applications. Panelists were Raj Aggarwal of Localytics, Nick Brachet of Skyhook Wireless, Alex Donn of AT&T, and Bill Ginaoukos of HeyWire, and our moderator of the morning Andrew Borg of Aberdeen Group.

The audience questions kicked off immediately and didn't stop until the event ended. The underlying theme was "HTML5 or Native?". While the panel members weren't always in agreement on timelines, they all did agree that HTML5 alone was not yet sufficient to be used in rich applications that needed to go across different platforms. They also agreed that there is a place for HTML5 in developing tools and applications for a single device, such as iPad only apps or when the tool is to provide content only, such as the Kindle Fire.

There was also some discussion of a 'hybrid' mode, with HTML5 be used as a common "core" with a native 'wrapper'. This allows the deployment to be standardized among platforms, but the application is still native to each device.

There are a number of ways to test across platforms for enterprises developing their own tools, such as PhoneGap, RedFoundry, or Gomez. But the most essential thing an enterprise must do prior to developing the tools, is to develop a strategic plan - identify your audience, and what you want to accomplish.

Some important take-homes of the day:

- Identify users: B2B, B2C and B2E (E=employees)

- Going to a mobile platform is not an easy thing to do, but it is necessary, so develop a strong strategy

- Adoption will demand whether HTML5 ever supersedes native

What Are VCs Doing Today? Trends in Venture Capital Investing

2011-11-04T08:59:00.002-04:00

At this year’s Mass TLC unConference, WilmerHale hosted a panel of three venture capitalists to discuss trends in venture capital investing.

WilmerHale Counsel Josh Fox moderated the discussion, which featured Jeff Fagnan of Atlas Ventures, David Beisel of Next View Ventures and Eric Paley of Founder Collective.

The panelists weighed in on various topics as part of a dynamic discussion with an audience of entrepreneurs. The following represents just a snapshot of the full conversation.

Q: How early is "too early" for you and your firm to invest?

A: There is no rule. We make our investment decisions based on the team, the market and the technology. We might invest in a company that is very early in its development and business operations because we believe in the potential for the team, the market and the technology.

Q: How small an investment are you willing to make?

A: We make very small investments, in addition to larger ones. Dollar amounts can be as low as $50,000 to $100,000.

Q: How are your early-stage seed investments structured?

A: The smaller investments are often structured as convertible debt.

Q: When you structure an investment as convertible debt, do you negotiate for a cap on the company's valuation with respect to the conversion of that debt into stock?

A: Yes, we typically ask for a cap.

Q: How can a founder pick the right VC?

A: Choose based on the prior investments of the venture capital firm and particular partner. Determine how the VC can add value. Make sure that the firm has experience in your space. Research whether the VC has invested in a direct competitor of yours.

Q: How can an entrepreneur communicate openly with a VC when he or she wants to remain in stealth mode? Will you sign an NDA?

A: We won't sign a confidentiality agreement. However, we are not in the business of starting companies in order to compete with a founder who pitches their idea to us. We are in the business of investing in companies and listen to general descriptions of businesses routinely. You can also carefully select the VCs to talk to, not contacting VCs that have invested in a direct competitor.

Each of the VCs provided his own answers to the above questions, and many others, based on personal experience and perspective. The above is only a brief summary of what was discussed and highlights some of the varying viewpoints of the VCs and those in the audience. It should not be attributed to any one person or entity. Any questions about the above, feel free to contact Josh Fox at joshua.fox@wilmerhale.com

HOW (AND WHY) TO PICK AN ACCELERATOR

2011-11-02T13:59:00.000-04:00

NEGATIVES (why you shouldn’t join an accelerator)

Accelerator-hopping
- Perpetual grad student
Puts off risk & real decisions
- Training wheels
- When do you kick the baby out of the nest?
- Does this kind of support attract the best entrepreneurs?
- Miss opportunity to build character, as Aerosmith did on their first, D-I-Y tours.
Overexposure

3 CATEGORIES OF 'ACCELERATOR'
Founders: These organizations start new companies in-house, from technology or ideas.
Examples:
- Idealab
- Universities
- Venture firms - Flagship Ventures, Kepha Partners, Highland (Entrepreneur Center)
Investors: Structured like venture funds, they take equity in participant companies
Examples:
- Techstars
- Y Combinator
- Vermont Center for Entrepreneurship
Vendors: Provide services in exchange for fees, or use other revenue models (corporate / government / nonprofit sponsorship or affiliation)
Examples:
- Cambridge Innovation Center
- MassChallenge
- DogPatch Labs
- Summer@Highland

SERVICES
Program focus:
- Time to market
- Funding
- Customer acquisition (B2B/B2C)
- Bootstrapping
Modes of delivery:
Peer-to-peer
- Established companies inside an accelerator are an 'engine' to pull new companies
- Ad hoc social conversations
- Participation: You can’t sit in a corner and code
- Can an accelerator attract quality peers? If they have attractive terms, yes.
Referral
- Platform for access to industry advisors, mentors
- Speakers
- In Techstars, mentors provide 80 percent of the value - per one participant
Competition
- Business Plan Competitions
- 3 to 4 days
- emphasis on presentations
- 7 out of 10 participants are 'real businesses'
- 'Act of preparing' for competition is helpful
MassChallenge
- Connections
- Lean Startup Challenge
- Competition prize serves as a ‘rallying point’ for team - more than a motivator for individuals
- Deadlines
- Peer pressure
Any program for which entrance is competitive (Techstars, Dogpatch): Can it motivate entrepreneurs through the application process alone?

STAGES OF COMPANY BUILDING: Different programs work at different stages, and some are complementary to, or feeder programs for others.

Idea stage
- Summer@Highland (some momentum behind the business - product dev, team, advisors)
- Universities: Launching entrepreneurship programs to prevent student attrition to startups.
- MIT MediaLab / e-Center
- Harvard Innovation Lab
Established company, with 'some' funding: This is where equity-based accelerators like TechStars typically fit in. DogPatch also plays in this area.
- DogPatch: 70 percent 'established'; 30 % are 'two guys, a keyboard and a goat.'

RESEARCH
Northeastern University survey for entrepreneurs, studying the impact of accelerators: http://bit.ly/helpafounderout

Thanks to Attendees and Sponsors of Innovation 2011!

2011-11-01T18:26:00.005-04:00

The Innovation 2011 unConference was an incredible success because of all of the experts, attendees and sponsors who participated. The day was packed with valuable sessions on an incredible range of topics and important connections were made all throughout the day. The feedback is pouring in...this is THE tech event in Boston and we can't wait to make it happen again next year.

Innovation 2011 unConference: Dharmesh Shah Interview

2011-11-01T16:30:00.000-04:00

HubSpot founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah was one of the 800 attendees at Innovation 2011. Here's his take on the day and the sessions he attended.

UnConference Session: Reinventing the Board of Directors

2011-10-31T18:57:00.003-04:00

Session leader: James Geshwiler

James asked the question: Why are you here? What's on your mind?

Answers included:

I'm here because I'm looking for directors
I'm setting up my 1st board, looking for advice
We have 2 insiders and 2 investors and are adding a strategic investor who wants to be on the board
Want to know how to look out for the founder's interests
To learn how to find and cultivate high quality boards
To learn how I get the most out of the board; I spend 50% of my time managing the board so this is important
I see lots of boards that are not that active; how do you get them involved, get them engaged?
Board members who do this for a living; how do you make this beneficial for the Company
How do you navigate the issue of a board member who's dealing with the issue of preferred stock vs common stock?
I've seen a good board that taken us up, followed by a bad board that's taken us down

James: Boards are incredibly relevant; I want to explore that.

There's no training for board members.

The board is a team.

Therefore WHO is on the board matters.

Companies evolve

1. infancy/exploration,

2. scaling/repeatable process,

3. early maturity/command and control,

4. going public

The company evolves; the board should too. Do we have permission and a process for that to happen?

To do this, you need to do an annual review of the board. Bring in an outsider to facilitate. Ask bankers, and others involved.

Company should have a page-long position description for the board seats. The annual review should take this into consideration for renewing each board seat.

Director has a duty to represent all the shareholders; acting as a fiduciary on all their behalf.

Who is holding the board accountable? is it the CEO's job? This is very uncomfortable for a CEO.

It is the role of the Chair to set the agenda and run the meetings; also to control the Board.

Peer pressure is very powerful.

CEOs want to set the agenda, talk about what they want to talk about.

Specific homework assignments for each board member is a good idea; board members can contribute a lot.

Organized committees is a way to do this. (Comp committee, audit committee, etc.)

There needs to be a board strategy.

Having name recognition is one attribute; but they must contribute.

What's the right size? Are there rules of thumb? Yes, don't have the wrong size board.

We choose boards the wrong way, like 'whoever writes the biggest check'.

Each side (entreprenuer - investor) chooses candidates from their own social network.

There is a norm of around 5...because this is a good size for a TEAM.

Consider setting up term limits.

Composition:

2 management

2 investors (or just 1)

1 outside (or 2)

The odd # is bogus, boards don't take votes where there's a split. Consensus building is an important aspect.

Recruit a Chair early; this person will own the job of Board Strategy. Your chair could/should be the best facilitator on the team. Might even be the person who talks the least...

It's common to invite a new potential member as an advisor, and you can test the chemistry.

The CEO is facing a number of conflicts if he/she is in the Chair seat.

Exec Chair is someone who's not the CEO but is in the Company with an operating role.

Our investor and we agreed that we needed an outside person to Chair the board; that was helpful.

Lots of companies do it without a chair, and that's fine; the problem is, fine isn't good enough.

Board Compensation:

1. Cash

2. B (stock)

3. Ego/social currency (ie the network)

The key issue is to align incentives with what you want from them.

Thanks to Drew Hannah for sharing her notes.

Scott Kirsner Interview at MassTLC Innovation 2011

2011-10-31T11:02:00.006-04:00

While roving the MassTLC Innovation 2011 unConference, I got the chance to speak with author and Boston Globe columnist Scott Kirsner at Innovation 2011 about the panel he led with CEOs from companies including Constant Contact, LogMeIn and iRobot, the benefits of the unConference, why Massachusetts is a great place to start a business and the one thing he recommends we change for next year's unConference (an easy fix!).

Session Notes from "NY vs. Boston Tech Scenes: It Is Not a Rivalry"

2011-10-30T19:12:00.000-04:00

Session led by Jared Chung

In general, the biggest challenge we face is that we are physically separated too often. Co-location is the most impactful thing we could do.

The following no-limit ideas were generated in the discussion:

Send a Boston contingent to NYTechMeetup and ask the NYTM to send a contingent to MassChallenge or NERD once every quarter ("The Boston Trek")
Subsidized travel between Boston and NYC for entrepreneurs on short trips: (a) NECorridor Acela tickets (The "NETechCorridor"), (b) the StartupBus, (c) Dedicated entrepreneur hotels or housing / Techbnb
Can we get Mayors Menino and Bloomberg to shake hands on the co-development of the Tech communities?
Let's set up "twin entrepreneur villages" where there are a dozen seats reserved for entrepreneurs visiting each city on short 2-4 day trips. (e.g., at CIC / MassChallenge and at General Assembly)
Livestream simulcast locations for major Tech events - assemble a list of events in each city and offer simulcast locations in the other city (e.g., NYTM night at CIC, or MIT Elevator Pitch night at NYTM)
A list of mentors in each city willing to mentor for startups in the other city ("MentorList" alla AngelList?)
Talent matching to create distributed NY/Boston teams of startups
A Wiki-style list of the things each city does best and the "winning" companies and VCs in each city
Potential for incoming corporate sponsorship and mentorship in a cross-city fashion

Notes from unConference Session "Occupy unConference"

2011-10-30T18:36:00.001-04:00

We started out the session by introducing ourselves and explaining our interest in the session. I will state individual statements, but exclude names since I did not ask permission at the beginning of the session.

The first participant splits his time between Boston and Vancouver, and has been amazed by the political influence held by Occupy Vancouver. He wonders how innovation can address the issues of the occupy movement.

The next participant posed the question “what’s fair?” and wonders what sort of opportunities his children will have. He believes our society has gotten to the point of being ridiculous.

Another participant started out working in government, and as someone now in the technology field he feels there could be an interesting intersection between the two. The occupy movement resonates with him, as he believes that inequality has infected politics.

We were also joined by a reporter who has been covering Occupy Boston. He found that there were a variety of interesting perspectives to be found at Occupy, and he finds the movement fascinating.

Another participant wondered about how the media could be effective in the occupy movement, noting that the right idea can become the structure. In the Occupy movement specifically, he wonders how we can reorganize and restructure to make the movement more effective. He suggested forming a taskforce of sorts.

Another studied the history of civil rights in college, and finds herself wondering how the strategies used in that movement can make the occupy movement more effective.

The next contributor found himself fascinated by the occupy movement as he works within corporate America. He wants to find tools from his expertise to aid in social change.

Still another member of our group blogs about politics and social change. He has been studying the economy for a number of years, and saw this type of change coming about 5 years back. He realizes that something has got to change in order to make more jobs, but wonders what that change will be.

Another found the self-leadership and self-organization of the occupy movement particularly intriguing. The next helps to support entrepreneurs who create jobs, and hopes that this will help the occupy movement.

Another finds himself active in politics, and believes that we as a country have driven ourselves to an extreme position. He feels that our country has changed and will never be the same. The next identifies as a conservative, politically, and is curious about the occupy movement. He comes from a formerly communist country, and has seen reorganization work at the governmental level.

Our final participant identifies as a member of the 1%, and yet has family members who are a part of the occupy movement. As someone who understands business and economics, this participant wants to see our countries wealth distribution change.

After identifying every participant, the group began to talk possible solutions. The first proposed solution is the 10x10 model. In this model, the highest paid CEO could not earn more than 10 times the wage of the lowest paid worker in the company. In exchange for this equitable salary distribution, said companies would receive a stamp of approval from some over-arching group. The method was compared to LEED certification, proclaiming ones company as “green”, etc. The potential increase in business would serve as incentive for companies to join this model. Historically speaking, this model has been successful in a number of cases. Most prominently, Henry Ford stated that he did not want to make cars more expensive than his factory workers could afford. Ideally, this model would serve to redistribute the wealth and to boost consumer spending, and thusly the economy. Others in the group proposed a divestment of shares.

At this point, group members began to debate the true cause of the occupy movement. Some felt that the movement represented a political problem (with money in politics being a key problem). Others felt that, though this particular proposed solution might not solve the entire problem, it is important to focus our energies on what we can do. Rather than tearing down suggestions, several participants felt it was key to say “yes, and…”

This led us to a conversation about what the tech economy can do to improve the system. It was suggested that companies not see big business as the ultimate goal, but rather understand the value in staying small. Additionally, some members proposed the idea of retaining the suggestion box, thereby listening to the best ideas within the company. Still another participant suggested investing in startups, knowing they will likely fail. Others noted that their time as mentors (specifically in VentureMentors) had both aided future entrepreneurs and themselves. Additionally, several members felt that in the U.S. we should refocus our energies on technology education.

Finally, many members of the group felt that this conversation should be continued after the unConference. For this purpose, these notes will be sent to the conference and to members who wished to continue the conversation.

Thank you to Amy Click for sharing her notes from this session.

How to Mash Your Big Data Cloud, and other unConference Lessons

2011-10-29T19:37:00.014-04:00

Written by Lawrence Schwartz (@SchwartzLawS)

Warming Up
The MassTLC unConference started on Wednesday night, with a pre-party at Storyville in Boston. I got to meet a lot of the younger 20 somethings enjoying a night out and heard everything pitched from very targeted ideas (a collection point for all your recipes - see MyReci) to helping with broader social issues such as propping up our local economy (see Luvn'Local - like airline miles but for shopping locally was how it was explained to me).

I had to look a little harder to find my infrastructure brethren. A few drinks later, I hit across one of the more talked-about places - Yotta, who recently had a big launch. Their value prop is simple and clear - most web sites take an average of 6 seconds to load but most people are unhappy if it takes longer than two. They can fix that. I pressed William Toll, their marketing guy, for how he's been successful in getting the word out, and he gave three pieces of advice - tweet, blog at least once a week, and make a good infographic (theirs, admittedly, is pretty cool - see here).

Friday, though, was overdrive with several sessions on Big Data and the cloud. I enjoyed in depth discussions on the following:

SoMoClo: Social Mobile Cloud, hosted by Andrew Borg @MobileAberdeen
Andrew made the case that in order for SoMoClo (Social Mobile Cloud) to be successful and offer a good experience, all 3 elements must co-exist. In fact, how useful is your iPhone or Android, save for playing Angry Birds, without your mobile connectivity? And SoMoClo is not just big for the consumer side. Jeffrey Tingle of PolyRemedy noted the need in healthcare. He pointed that there is $27 billion in federal economic stimulus available for those who can effectively access electronic medical records. SoMoClo is a way to do this. There are several inhibitors, however, for this area to continue to develop - privacy, compliance, security, and authentication among the most notable. The panel also covered how "mash-ups" are not limited geo-social apps for the college set. With tools such as IFTTT.com and Yahoo Pipe, people can combine the cloud with other expected communication methods such as texting.

Big Data/Analytics in MA hosted by Steve O'Leary of Aeris Partners and Bob Zurek (@bzurek) of Endeca

First question - what is Big Data? While often debated, Steve had a working definition of "big" in terms of Volume, Velocity, and Variety. Mark Rubin of Oracle, who focuses on MySQL, noted that we are collecting everything now because we can. That has led his firm to look at options from extending MySQL to completely alternative platforms (like NoSQL). Fritz Knabe of Netezza/IBM noted that Big Data can come from even the most unexpected places, such as the point-of-sale coupons at checkouts as managed by Catalina (an IBM customer). And while the infrastructure to support Big Data has continued to evolve and mature, there is a real need to make data accessible and interesting for new insights. A number of companies and ways to do this were discussed, such as Tableau, infographics, and Opengov. The model for people to pay for data analytics is proven too. Bob took a quick poll to see who used LinkedIn Premium, and a good number of hands went up. A primary benefit of that is additional analytics - a way for you to see who has viewed your profile as one example. One issue and opportunity though for Boston is that while we have a lot of "data geniuses" in town, many of the people at these data companies are focused on selling to others of a similar mind set. There is a lot to be done still to package Big Data and make it accessible to non-data "geniuses."

Fear not, as Steve and Bob (shown above) were building enthusiasm for a BigData cluster in Boston to tackle this issue and to build a community. They estimate there are about 100 companies around the space - not bad and reminiscent of the wireless cluster around Boston, which boasts around 400 places.

BigData on Small Devices led by Raphael Cariou of RealityFrontier.
After a big lunch and break, it was time to keep the Big Data conversation going. One of the topics in this group was a practical one on the Big Data cloud - how much do you have to have local to your device? If you are going on a hike in the woods, for example, you may very well want to have the latest maps downloaded, lest you lose connectivity (you better bring a spare battery too, in that case). While getting much more than a sliver of the cloud into your pocket isn't practical given the size of mobile data pipes (and required forethought), there are times now when this happens automatically. Most people can easily have their last 1000 photos local on their iPhone or Android as one example.

Secrets of Scaling Startups led by Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe
At the end of the day, I took my head out of the clouds and listened to some battled-tested veteran CEOs talking about scaling - not data, but the other kind - how to scale a startup. LogMeIn's Michael Simon noted that he started as a freemium model just for the heck of it. He did not know that it would eventually bring exponential growth. Meanwhile, Gail Goodman, Constant Contact's CEO, talked about making it through the ups and downs and their tough 3 years of early fund raising -- in 2000 they had a post money valuation of $27M, in 2002 it was a post of $5M. They got the last laugh though - their market cap today is around $600M. She kept persevering through it and grew the company, even over the objections of a board member who wanted to sell early. It just goes to show if you believe in the scalability of your data and/or your business, then you should keep at it.

Notes from Session “Post Acquisition Depression” led by David Rose

2011-10-29T18:15:00.003-04:00

David recently sold Vitality to an L.A. based investor. David is still the CEO but is left out of major decisions within the company. As he has signed a non-compete, he is trying to decide how to spend his remaining 14 months. He hoped that this session would help him learn from the experiences of others who have been in a similar position.

Several other entrepreneurs in the room had better experiences with their acquirers. One man recently sold his company to Google, and felt that Google continues to respect him as the leader of his company. He was able to retain his team, his management style, and still makes key decisions when it comes to the leadership of the company. He stated that Google is run like a start-up, and wonders if there are other companies who understand how to integrate entrepreneurs successfully.

Another man recently sold to Zynga, where he feels that he is trusted. He said that the cooperative environment at Zynga allowed for the many entities within Zynga to use the best parts of one another’s companies, without having to sacrifice their independence or their ability to make their own decisions. He appreciates Zynga’s weak centralization, crediting it with his relative freedom. He also reminded the group that he knew of less successful stories of selling to Google. Some wondered if the company’s off-site location (Boston versus San Francisco) might be an advantage to them.

David’s experience, however, has left him without his team, without control and without much contribution. He voiced concern that without his input, his product may never reach its potential. Several in the group suggested that David might consider spending a chunk of time in LA to avoid later regrets. They pointed out that his proximity to his acquirer might allow him increased influence over the product and the handling of Vitality.

Several within the group went the opposite route, leaving the company before it was sold. This allowed them the opportunity to keep the stock without the responsibility. The group identified a key question “is the baby going to live”. Some in the group realized it may be easier to walk away from a company if you have certainty that your product, your baby, will continue to thrive without your influence. Another participant pointed out that every product needs an advocate. In some cases, the acquirer becomes the advocate, other times the entrepreneur must stay in the picture to advocate for his or her product.

Others pointed out that often, founders have more leverage than they realize or care to utilize. Additionally, the group felt that though the VC and the board can sometimes be pushy, their ultimate goal is to serve as a check, offering perspective to founders.

Still, the central question remains: what to do with this post-acquisition depression? One founder asked the question “where do you want to be in 10 years?” saying that the answer to that question should guide your life post-acquisition. Another suggested turning this period of time into a challenge, asking yourself “what can I learn from my acquirers that I can use in the next business? What’s my take-away here?” Still others encouraged David to continue working, with the permission of his acquirer. They felt that going to his investor and speaking to him directly about expectations might in fact open up the possibility of working on new products. By approaching the investor with a simple “I feel like I could be more productive for you” you allow him to see your continuing work as a positive for him, and keep it from being competitive work. To solve the problem of missing your team, one founder suggested joining a mentoring group for young entrepreneurs.

Thanks to Amy Click for her notes from this session

A Visual Tour of MassTLC's Innovation 2011 unConference

2011-10-29T16:27:00.003-04:00

Council Trustee Dan Bricklin shot over 300 photos at MassTLC's Innovation unConference. Most are close ups of individual participants so if you were one of the 800+ people in attendance, check out this set on Flickr to see yourself or someone you know.

Session 3 - How to know when a venture guy is bluffing? Finding the right funding partner

2011-10-29T16:19:00.005-04:00

Session Leader: Jeffrey Beir

Consider staged investments rather than taking a big check from a vc. Hitting staged milestones that proves out your business balances valuation and amount of capital raised/preference. It also allows for an early exit if that seems like the best path, but doesn't preclude raising more capital if the opportunity warrants it.

Considerations and questions to help you assess the venture firm and their fit with your business?

Do they have expertise in your space? If they don't and don't know anyone who can really be helpful - they're bluffing.

Do they ask you hard/good questions? If they don't, but prefer to pontificate and give their uninformed opinion, they are bluffing.

How much ownership/capital do they need to put to work to justify their involvement? If they need to own 30-50% and put $15-30m to work, and you only need $5m to get to break-even - don't kid each other, they are bluffing.

Do they have a slot? If they sit on 10-12 boards, have a backlog of deals waiting for exits and really don't have a slot to devote to your deal - they are bluffing.

How do they view your early investors/angels? Likely your angel investors took a lot of the early risk and have provided a lot of value to get you to this point - if their firm philosophy is to limit their involvement and crush their ownership position, maybe not a great fit.

Board style. You probably did this because you are an entrepreneur, think you're pretty good at predicting the future and are comfortable taking risks to change the world. If their deal structure or board style will make you feel like an employee and not an owner, probably not a great fit.

If they don't think you're the right guy to be CEO - do they tell you why, what they're looking for, and when they think is the right time to make the change. If it's thoughtful - respect them for your directness. If they want to make the change before they put the money in, perhaps it's not the right deal for you.

What is the firms typical round; Seed or Series A? Is the seed really a seed, or is it just a reservation at the table and they need to put $10-20m to work?

Ask early on, “Will you lead? Many will be glad to follow and wait for someone else to do the work. That's a no.

What do VCs look for:

Is it an awesome management team. Do they have the right skills/experience for this market and the product fit?

Is the space/market substantial enough to build a big company and provide a desired return.

Is the product/distribution/monetization approach compelling?

What's the competitive landscape look like? Can you build a sustainable, differentiated offering?

Don't raise more money than you need (with a 50% buffer) to prove a significant milestone.

Listen to “No” from a VC and try and understand their reasons for “No". Many won't come outright and say "No", so you need to hear the signals - "not in my wheelhouse", "not sure I can get my partners to bite", "here's some diligence I need (that seems silly to you)".

Beware of vc’s hedging.

Understand the difference between “theme based” vs. “opportunity” investors.

Slow is fast. How does slower investment effect your valuation? An important balance.

Upside - If you develop proof and hit your milestones – improved valuation

Downside of slower stage could be your deal is not enough to achieve your goals.

If you did not achieve your goal it is important to ask yourself why and be pragmatic.

If you have to do a down round, your cap chart will get ugly

Session concluded with miscellaneous Q&A and general discussion related to attendees ventures.

Thanks to note taker Peter Brady

UnConference Session on Getting into Tech Stars

2011-10-29T16:00:00.004-04:00

By guest blogger, David Wong

Katie Rae, Managing Director, TechStars Boston @ktrae
David Cohen, Executive and founder, TechStars @davidcohen

They have support from the MassChallenge (Scott Bailey @scottbaileyBTV) and DogPatchLabs (Gus Weber @gweber) crew, love when simliar objective organizations help each other!

Early deadline was encouraged
Extra opportunity for TechStars to hang out with the founders and teams

Reasons why you want to be at TechStars

When you're around exceptional people/companies, it makes you want to be great(er)
Amazing awesome mentors in different industries
Mentors want you to succeed

How does the funding aspect work? At the time you're accepted...
$18k upfront common stock (6% of valuation)
$100k convertible note option (only if you need it)

More FAQs at http://www.techstars.com/program/faqs/
- Post Demo Day - unique opportunity from 300-700 investors who show up to Demo Day
- David loves bootstrapping companies

TechStars does not discriminate on age. Accepted entrepreneurs ranged from a 16 yr old to 62 yr old!

Tweet David or Katie with the code word "Pomegranate" and receive a special prize.

Read why Kinvey loves TechStars http://bostinnovation.com/2011/10/17/how-to-get-into-techstars-boston/
Read why PromoBoxx loves TechStars http://bostinnovation.com/2011/10/27/from-rejected-to-techstars-to-funded/

Jeff Taylor Crashes #unCon video

2011-10-28T15:06:00.002-04:00

Amy Black, MassTLC VP of Marketing and Membership, gives a quick overview of this year's unConference and is interrupted by Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com and Eons while filming. Now THAT's the unConference for you!

More #unCon posts

2011-10-28T14:17:00.005-04:00

The MassTLC Innovation unConference is still going in full force. While we try to sit-in on as many sessions as possible, we'd like to highlight some other people's perspective from the day.

Paul Hlatky covers the unGardener.

Briana Cavanaugh covers the unConference facilitation.

What afternoon sessions have you been to?

Guest blog: Selling to a Small Business: The Best and Worst of B2B and B2C

2011-10-28T13:36:00.006-04:00

By: Kristin Dziadul
Led by: Randy Parker

Small businesses today make up a majority of the businesses and hiring bodies in America today. While they are lucrative in talent and new ideas, they are not so lucrative in incentives to buy.
You can sell to small businesses all day but chances are you will not make a sale until they are ready to either make a switch in products they use or recognize a new need they have. The key, as discussed during this intimate panel of eight, is to be there when they are ready to buy. This may seem both obvious and a bit silly since it seems to defeat the purpose of marketing to prospects, however the point is that there are ways to easily capture sales-ready leads.

There are several ways to do this:

1 - Use affiliate programs
Affiliates excel the awareness of a product or service to a buyer when they are ready to buy. While this will cost you a pretty penny, it is worth it to reach right into sales-ready pipelines via affiliates to get instant sales without a lengthy nurturing program.

2 - Use hard proof that your service works
By telling a person that a company such as Zappos uses your technology to improve x,y,z and demonstrating the clear advantages they've achieved by using the product, you are both building up credibility and exemplifying real success stories that are well known.

3 - Optimize your SEO program
When businesses are ready to buy, chances are they will visit Google, Bing and the like to determine which is the best solution for them. If you can be there both organically and with paid ads, chances are much higher that your company site will be clicked on than if you were not optimized. It’s all about being up front and center to the buyer at all times.

4 - Trusted referrals can go a long way.
Empower your best customers to be your best product champions. Encourage them to suggest the product to their friends and colleagues. Chances are, if they really believe in your product, this will be easy to obtain. While not scalable since there will probably only be a select few diehard fans of yours, this powerful word-of-mouth can go a long way via a few good customers.

5 - Go to local events.
Josh Bob of Texturant explained that they co-hosted a local event with Where and Constant Contact. This event opened the doors to a tight-knit group of people with whom these companies could develop close relationships with and have one-on-one conversations.

6 - Use cross-industry referrals
An example was given that local restaurants can refer their customers to a great hair salon next door. This does not defer any current restaurant customers away from their business -- it simply helps promote local synergy, benefiting both parties.

While exciting and sensible as these ideas seem, there are, of course, challenges to marketing to small businesses.

First, keep in mind that small businesses don't consider themselves small businesses. Instead of making a 'small business' a target market person, hone in on who within that small business market is your actual target. You can segment small businesses by verticals, industries, positions within the company, etc. Think deeper than just 'small business' because you may not reach the real decision makers and the ones with the actual pain point and need if you are marketing at that high of a level.

Second, many companies today find it hard to sell to their Board of Directors or investors the idea of selling to small businesses. Most see this as a very tough sell and, many times, a waste of time and money. They understand these companies are tight on budgets and sometimes can have drawn out sales processes due to not being sales-ready at the time. While focusing on their business goals and sustaining a profitable business model, you are then forcing them to make a decision to buy something they may not have thought about before.

Understanding the right ways to reach these people is the key to get both investor and board buy-in and to actually obtaining a profitable market segment.

If you are currently selling to a small business, what are your challenges and opportunities? How have you or others overcome them?

Guest Blog: Focus on the Right Metrics -- Early Stage Startups Session

2011-10-28T13:14:00.004-04:00

By: Janet Aronica

The Unconference’s early-stage startup session was lead by Parul Singh of Gradeables and Lean Startup Challenge. The round-table discussion offered a sampling of metrics to measure, recommendations for tools to use, as well as a clear message that you shouldn’t get too caught up in measuring everything for your startup.

Participants considered the importance of funnel metrics, tracking the behavior of your users throughout each step of the customer lifecycle. Several people noted that the exact metrics you use for this can be different for B2B and SAAS versus B2C companies, especially mobile. David Skok’s blog was mentioned as a particularly helpful resource for SAAS companies.

All agreed that getting started on the right foot was important. The commitment to measurement can’t just be for business. You have to create a culture around data, get buy-in from your developers, and establish right foundation for your tool or website at the beginning so that you are prepared for data collection. The point was made that you can always “subtract data later” – or choose to focus crucial KPIs later on as you define your business and product more. But what you can’t do is go back and add numbers you weren’t tracking before if you didn’t set up your back-end properly.

All that said, I really liked one man’s point that you can’t forget what your core competency is. He explained that sometimes companies get off on a tangent building up their own metrics databases, when at some point it would really be a better use of time and resources to invest in a tool to help them not only collect data but efficiently analyze it. It seemed that people were using a variety of tools, including:

Get Clicky
User Mood
Kissmetrics
Performable (HubSpot Enterprise)
Mix Panel
Google Analytics
Fluery
Contastion
Localytics
Chat Trends
At This
Trada
Unbound
Verify App

Last but not least, when it came to selecting what metrics to measure, I loved that that several people mentioned customer feedback as a resource. Asking people where they heard about you with another question at the end of a contact form or offering customer opinion surveys were just two of the ways participants were using real human feedback – not guessing – to choose what data they would track. Now I’m a huge fan of that.

One thing I would add that wasn’t mentioned in the session – follow #measure on Twitter. There’s a ton of value in that stream when it comes to finding articles about A/B testing, email, marketing and other metrics topics.

Session recaps

2011-10-28T13:07:00.002-04:00

If you missed the lunch sessions:

Matt Rushton covers "How to pick a startup accelerator" and "TechStars Unplugged."

Thanks, Matt!

Session 2: Company Culture

2011-10-28T13:01:00.002-04:00

Adrian Wong covered the Company Culture session at the MassTLC Innovation unConference.

Led by: Eran Egozy, co-founder, Harmonix spearheading discussions

- The group was diverse from a company just started out with 2 people to a large company started 9 years ago employing 300+

Two ways of thinking company culture:

1. What do you do: habits, introducing new employees, holding events, awards
- When you get bigger
You have to set rules, but always have exemptions so individuals feel respected
- Awards

Having specific awards (ex. Most transparent individual award - hope you are more creative with the name than mine) that amplifies the company's cultural values instead of employee of the month
- How do you tie the brand and the culture? Or is it even possible?

At Harmonix, most are in some sort of musical consortium but if they are not chances are they will be in a few months (they have their own band room)

- Competitons
Create friendly inclusion of each department for each group/team
- Hold meetings that don't stink and also provide transparency (see point #2)
The sooner you create weekly meetings, the easier it is scalable and implemented
Speaking of HR! The purpose of having HR is to prevent employees from suing the company, not help employees with the problems they have (sorry not a knock on HR). Have a professional tasked with helping and not preventing.

2. Set of core values: ex. transparency, hiring policies
- Transparency - as company grows bigger there is a tendency to hide things (check out BzzAgent and Hubspot)
- Hiring someone - if you don't want to hire jerks then sniff them out early so as the company grows they will pick out the talent pool individuals who are the same as they are (which are not jerks) (side note - have individuals not in management be involved in interview procress who understand culture well)
- Have lunch meetings and round table discussions on what is going on in the company (management telling them what is going on) (side note - if you don't want to bore employees in such meetings - pay attention)

- How do you get feedback?
You think you know but you have no clue: ignorance is not bliss
Have a mini conference with day long sessions in smaller groups with sessions that targets that reverberates the company values but also have individuals voice their honest opinions in an intimate environment

Resources
- Read Tony Hsieh's book "Delivering Happiness"
- Check out Netflix culture deck

Info you want to go social
- Twitter @MassTLc
- Hashtag #MassTLC #unCon
- Blog: blog.masstlc.org
- App (yes they have an app!)

10 Common Startup Mistakes

2011-10-28T12:59:00.001-04:00

Session two included 10 Common Startup Mistakes. Full post here.

What other sessions did you attend before lunch?

#UNCONCOLLEGE

2011-10-28T12:19:00.002-04:00

I’m a Senior at BU interested in jumping into the Boston start up scene along with hundreds of other students in this city. This panel at the Mass TLC Unconference comprised of people looking to make that number thousands as soon as possible.

Karl Buttner of Mass Challenge began the conversation asking everyone to introduce themselves and talk to the students in the room. What are the problems students face breaking into the scene and most importantly what can we do to fix it?

Read Paul's full post here.

Going Freemium

2011-10-28T11:56:00.001-04:00

Full notes from the Going Freemium Session at the MassTLC Innovation unConference.

Key Takeaways from Innovating Social Tech

2011-10-28T11:32:00.003-04:00

Adrian Wong provided notes from Innovating Social Tech

@ Innovating Social Tech
Andy Maddocks, R2integratingBoston @andymaddocks spearheading discussions
- What is social? (if you aren't familiar) Social is the ability to connect people to places to ideas
- Where the opportunities arise: education, commerce, causes, engagement, health & social, across daily life, visibility, ideas-to-interaction
- Problem: Social space is a fragmented market which sparks the notion on metrics
- Is Measurement a constraint on innovation?

Very few people knew what are the metrics that would impact consumer behavior
- Demand-side development targeting specific user populations

Stop being monolithic in your social brands, have more specific conversations

Being a generalist engaging a large audience will provide little value when it comes conveying a message; mainly true with large corporations as they are still figuring out social

Be more location-centric
- Bringing an app into market would in essence require SEO & SEM
- There is lack of understanding the "leveragability" of older technologies into newer applications

Optimizing thank you notes
Read the book "The Thank You Economy" on the power of simple thank you notes engagement
- How can social appeal to B2B

Provide customer support
Engage developer communities
Community share same applications across different industries
Utilize inbound methodology (if you are curious check Hubspot.com)

Some of the outstanding concerning B2B: security, privacy, confidentiality
- Is there a silver bullet? Not so much since the space is continuously fragmented

Possible solution: Become focused and not be the end-all-be-all solution; find your "passionate" customers to "participate" into the development for the TOTAL ORGANIZATION COMMITMENT

Communities of Interests
1. Entrepreneurs need to leverage them
2. Utilize crowd sourcing capabilities to create and curate R&D process

Info you want to go social:
- Twitter @MassTLC @adrianjwong
- Hashtag #MassTLC #unCon
- Blog: blog.masstlc.org; adrianjwong.tumblr.com
- App (yes they have an app!)

Stay up-to-the Minute on the MassTLC Innovation unConference

2011-10-28T10:51:00.002-04:00

Besides MassTLC blogging actively throughout the day, we also have some awesome folks blogging from different sessions. If you can't be at the MassTLC Innovation unConference, the updates will make you feel like you are a part of the event and if you are attending, it will help you get the best from all the sessions running concurrently!

Brothers Matt and Kyle Rushton will be updating frequently throughout the day from the unConference. We encourage you to visit their blog to follow along. You can also follow Matt and Kyle on Twitter.

Happy Innovation unConference day!

Bill Warner’s Pick Up Line for Today

2011-10-28T10:41:00.002-04:00

Bill Warner, Founder and Co-Chair of Mass TLC Unconference takes the center of the room this morning to greet the technology leaders of the country. He begins by reminding us that we are “part of something big.” He explains that ”Boston is the forefront of new technologies. An entrepreneur comes to Boston and realizes they can do anything here.”

Full post by Paul Hlatky here.

Jeff Taylor on Innovation in Mass and the MassTLC Innovation unConference

2011-10-26T16:14:00.004-04:00

Serial entrepreneur Jeff Taylor chatted with us at MassTLC about the state of innovation in Massachusetts and what the MassTLC Innovation unConference means to him.

Jeff is the founder of six Internet companies including Monster.com and Eons. Currently, Jeff is launching a new startup called buffalo.dj, a talent management company for the electronic dance scene and his own music festival (think Coachella and Bonaroo). For more info, check out Scott Kirsner's article about it here.

MassTLC: What makes Boston a great place for incubating innovations?

Jeff Taylor: The vibrant startup community in Massachusetts, including organizations like MassTLC and the and incubator programs like MassChallenge and TechStars, contribute to our powerful ecosystem for innovation. As a mentor, I'm invested in the startup scene in Mass. It's not just a place where I provide guidance, I also learn from the entrepreneurs. They keep me sharp, and that's part of what's so special about the Massachusetts innovation scene. It's thriving and growing and everyone benefits from the knowledge and drive.

MassTLC: What drives innovation here in Massachusetts?

Jeff Taylor: The recent micro-investment climate is a driving factor in local innovation. I'm amazed by the great gamesmanship in our state, bringing new ideas to market at the faction of the cost. Instead of requiring $1-3 million in funding, companies are getting started with much, much less. I also think educational institutions and the young entrepreneurs here drive innovation.

MassTLC: What's your favorite unConference memory?

Jeff Taylor: Last year I organized a session on Brand vs. Quant. The room was just slightly too small, so I rallied the troops to find a bigger room. On the way, I asked each person to tell others they passed to join their session. It kept growing to over 60 people and ended up as a fascinating, dynamic group discussion. People still tell me today how inspiring last year's session was.

MassTLC: How can entrepreneurs get the most out of this year's unConference?

Jeff Taylor: Woody Allen once said, "80% of success in life is showing up." It is incumbent on the attendees to get out of their shell, meet new people, share new ideas, bring personal challenges, your unique expertise, and your unique brand to the conference. It's important to really expand from your circle of personal acquaintances and friends at the conference to meet others who can help you and challenge you to grow.

Join MassTLC, Jeff Taylor and many others from the tech industry for the 2011 MassTLC Innovation unConference this Friday, October 28 at Hynes Convention Center from 8-4:30. Sessions will be created the day of by attendees and experts-propose any topic you care about and lead a session! Follow MassTLC unConference on Twitter and Facebook.

David Beisel of WebInno on The MassTLC unConference:

2011-10-26T16:07:00.005-04:00

We recently chatted with David Beisel, co-founder and partner at NextView Ventures, and founder of WebInno, about the innovation economy in our state. David is no stranger to the power of bringing people together to share ideas. This is his 4th year as an unConference Expert, so we knew he’d have great tips for this year’s entrepreneurs and attendees.

MassTLC: What drives innovation in Massachusetts today?

David Beisel: Universities and young people are the primary drivers. Universities are technology hubs, which serve as a hub-and-spoke model for innovation, where each year we see numerous young undergraduate and graduate students choose Boston and Cambridge for their home.

There's also the state's 'innovation pockets', both in geography and industry. Places like Kendall Square, the Innovation District and the 128 loop- with high density of brilliant minds within very small geographical areas-feed innovation. There are several industry 'innovation pockets' which Massachusetts supports, such as digital media and Internet companies, specifically companies focused on e-commerce, SMB services and mobile ad networks. In the last five years, there have been six major acquisitions in the mobile ad network space that were $100M+, and five of those six were Boston-based companies, like Quattro Wireless .

MassTLC: What's your favorite unConference connection?

David Beisel: Three years ago, I met two young entrepreneurs and have kept in touch with them since – meeting every several months to receive updates and talk shop.

MassTLC: What do you love about the unConference?

David Beisel: I love the unConference because attendees can both lead and participate in topics that matter to them. If you find you aren't as interested in the given topic, you're encouraged to find a different session, and if, on the way to the next session, you happen to run into few people and start an interesting conversation in the hallway, that is ok too. It's a very democratic marketplace for ideas.

MassTLC: How does one make the most of the unConference?

David Beisel: The key is not just attending the conference, but following up afterwards and transforming an initial one-time interaction into a budding business relationship. People who get the most out of the unConference are really proactive afterwards.

If you would like to join us for the MassTLC unConference this Friday, October 28 at Hynes Convention Center from 8-4:30, visit the MassTLC website. Sessions will be created the day of by attendees and experts-propose any topic close to your heart. Follow MassTLC unConference on Twitter or Facebook.

Cloud Computing on a rainy day

2011-10-13T11:11:00.023-04:00

Attendees at the MassTLC Cloud Computing Summit on October 13th had the opportunity to learn about realizing the business benefits of "cloud computing" from experts across the industry. First, however, they saw conventional cloud computing in action, as they braved torrential rain to arrive at the conference.

The cloud, and its application, is evolving rapidly

The day began with a keynote session presented by Michael Skok, of Northbridge Venture Partners and Bruce Guptill of Saugatuck Technology and an executive panel including Chris Brookins, VP of Engineering, Acquia and Tom Ebling, CEO, DemandWare.

No surprise, Michael noted that cloud investment is on the rise, with greater than 75% of companies employing public or hybrid clouds. Lawrence Schwartz penned a great post about the presentation on the Tokutek blog, TokuView and cited:

- Michael's observation that agility, scalability, and cost are the biggest drivers of cloud adoption--but that in five years, the drivers will hinge on innovation, mobility, API's and competitive pressures.

- Bruce's remarks that cloud adoption levels were about one in three for new IT applications last year, but that we are heading to a one in two tipping point in 2014--and that that buyers are demanding cloud offerings, which in turn is driving 90% of ISV’s to some sort of cloud based presence.

- Chris's conclusion that his company, Acquia, had resolved the portability issue (i.e., vendor lock-in) and was therefore able to grow to 60k users

Michael’s presentation on the Future of Cloud Computing can be found here.

Private, public, hybrid: Each has its strengths
Brief highlights are below from the panelists concluding that there are pros and cons of both public and private cloud solutions:

- Employ public clouds for economy of scale, use private clouds only for applications where security is a priority.
- If you can predict your needs, and don't need the agility to scale up and down, consider using the private cloud.
- That said, with predictable loads, the public cloud can be very cost-effective.

Breakout sessions:
After the keynote, attendees had the option of attending two workshops. I attended the sessions on usability and mobile. The other sessions focused on making the transition from on premise to SaaS and the challenges and considerations for moving to the cloud.

Usability case studies: 37 Signals, Amazon and Box
In addition to offering an entertaining format, Cory did a great job of defining the issues. He explained that the panelists would each focus on three of four companies: Netflix, 37 Signals, Amazon, and Box. Cory then asked each panelist to focus on a specific usability challenge that the company faced when developing its product.

The audience decided against hearing about how Netflix handled the challenge associated with moving from Netflix to Qwikster to Netflix. The loudest among us opined that there was already too much discussion of this topic. Cory's presentation of the four examples can be found here.

Simplicity vs. Flexibility
First up, was Joshua Porter, Director of UX at Hubspot, who Cory asked to discuss the tradeoffs of Simplicity vs. Flexibility using 37 Signals as a case study. Joshua noted that when building HighRise, 37 Signals' designers chose to employ only a small set of screens. He compared this approach to Salesforce's more complex user interface, which provides tremendous flexibility.

Josh point out that High Rise entered the market after Salesforce--and that simplest wins at the beginning. He added that disciplined designers, aim to keep the initial interface simple, but plan for future complexity.

These designers keep sequence and flow top of mind at all times. They then may use a technique like "progressive disclosure" to reveal additional features in the right order at the right time. The example he provided was the presentation of essential elements first, with a link to advanced options.

He then described his own research experience at Hubspot. One example, he gave was the ordering of tasks. When testing the application with actual users, he quickly found that marketers prefer to create an email campaign before they build or specify a list. As a consequence, Hubspot now permits users to do exactly that.

Great user experiences vary by market segment
Karl Wirth, CEO, Apptegic, centered his remarks on the difference between a good and great user experience. He began by noting that it's hard to argue with Amazon's approach, especially now that we know how successful it's been.

Then, he described a good vs. great experience using a restaurant meal as an example. There, a great experience is when either you come across a pleasant surprise or you get an experience that represents a significant improvement over what you expected (e.g. lower price, faster, etc.)

Karl's observations highlighted the importance of knowing who you want to serve--and what they value most. He argued that Amazon provides a great user experience to the technical and financial buyers it aims to serves, because it doesn't use a GUI.

He added that we now have analytics that will tell us how successful users employ our products. When used as a part of a thoughtful strategy, he believes this makes is easier than ever to learn what constitutes a good user experience.

Freemium to Enterprise: Do you see what I see?
Joe Baz, Founder and CEO, Above the Fold, reiterated the importance of market segmentation in his discussion of how to design a single application that spans the spectrum of users from Freemium to Enterprise.

Joe spoke about the different perspectives of consumer, IT, and corporate users--and the importance of giving each an experience tailored to his/her own preferences and past experiences. His tip: design for each segment's workflow.

Using Box as an example, Joe explained that consumers want to dive into sharing files with their teams. IT, on the other hand, concerns itself with security, and individual profiles for different users, so they prefer to start by viable product often strikes the right chord.

Enterprise IT departments, on the other hand, need to start with Account Management, assigning appropriate security levels and rights to different types of users. Nevertheless, their users need to see a much simpler interface, very much like that the one consumers prefer

There was also some discussion of the cost of Freemium and ensuring that there is sufficient volume of paid customers to offset the costs of supporting free users. Someone noted that another way to justify the cost of Freemium is to assign it to marketing expense. This individual noted that this is a way to shortcut the buying process and accelerate the sale. The hope is that users that experience the Freemium product will sell it to their colleagues, thus obviating the need for a lot of marketing collateral.

Multiple perspectives create great value
In short, it was a great morning. The Mass TLC's cloud computing summit addressed the topic through the eyes of multiple players, from IT to Marketing to the financiers. Best, was the opportunity to hear case studies and examples from experts who have "been there and done that". Once again, I'm glad to live in Boston where one can stay at the leading edge without boarding a train or a plane.

Guest post contributed by Barbara Bix, BB Marketing Plus

2011 Mass Technology Leadership Awards Gala: Spotlighting Innovation & Leadership in Massachusetts

2011-10-07T17:06:00.009-04:00

PEGASYSTEMS' TREFLER, BLUESOCKET'S LILLELUND,
ANALOG DEVICES AND WAYFAIR TAKE HONORS
AT MASS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP AWARDS

Technology Pioneer A. Neil Pappalardo, Meditech; Patrick Larkin, John Adams Innovation Institute; FIRST Robotics and Microsoft New England Research and Development Center Recognized for Industry Leadership

BOSTON, October 6, 2011 - The Mass Technology Leadership Council, the foremost business association that addresses the critical leadership issues of innovative technology and technology-enabled companies announced the winners of the 14th annual Mass Technology Leadership Awards at a gala event last night at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. Pegasystems CEO and Founder Alan Trefler and Bluesocket President and CEO Mads Lillelund, took the top honors in the CEO of the Year categories, with Trefler recognized for his accomplishments as Public Company CEO of the Year and Lillelund for his achievements as Private Company CEO. Leading the Company of the Year categories, Analog Devices and Wayfair, formerly known as CSN Stores took the top prizes as Public Company of the Year and Private Company of the Year respectively. In a special live audience vote, Myomo won Product of the Year.

This year's event showcased the depth and breadth of the state's vibrant technology ecosystem, with nominees in a wide array of technologies. "The richness of the burgeoning technology industry in Massachusetts was on full display tonight," said Tom Hopcroft, President and CEO of the Council. "With leaders from early to established companies representing mobile, energy, health IT, and other important sectors, the Mass Technology Leadership Awards continue to spotlight and inspire the best our sector has to offer."
500 senior executives filled the waterfront hotel's ballroom to celebrate the presentation of the awards, and in a demonstration of the power of using technology real time, audience members used their mobile devices to vote via text message for Product of the Year.

The Council also bestowed four special honors for leadership in the Massachusetts technology community. Those awardees were:

Commonwealth Award: A. Neil Pappalardo, technology pioneer and Chairman & CEO of MEDITECH;
Policy Leader of the Year: Patrick Larkin, Director, John Adams Innovation Institute of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative;
Workforce Development Leader: US FIRST, a world-renowned program that helps young people discover and develop a passion for science, engineering, technology, and math; and
Innovation Catalyst: Microsoft's New England Research and Development Center (NERD)

"These special honors shine a light on individuals and organizations that play a key role in helping the industry thrive and inspire tomorrow's leaders," said Heather Johnson, Senior Vice President of the Council. "This year's winners truly personify the spirit of innovation and leadership that continues to inspire the future of our sector and will help the industry reach new levels of success in the years to come."

The winners, selected from the more than 200 nominees in all other categories are:

CEO of the Year, Private Company: Mads Lillelund, President & CEO, Bluesocket, Inc.
CEO of the Year, Public Company: Alan Trefler, CEO and Founder, Pegasystems
CIO of the Year: Bill Scudder, CIO, Sonus Networks
Emerging Executive of the Year: Tracy Rosenthal-Newsom, Vice President of Production, Harmonix Music Systems
Private Company of the Year: Wayfair, formerly known as CSN Stores
Public Company of the Year: Analog Devices
Deal of the Year: ITA Software
Product of the Year: Myomo

A committee of Council Trustees, local thought leaders and media were involved with the selection process for the nominees and, with the exception of Product of the Year (selected by live vote at the event), chose the winners in each category. For a full list of nominees in each category, go to http://www.masstlc.org/2011awardsfinalists.html.

MassTLC wishes to give special thanks to the sponsors of the Awards Program: Microsoft, Oracle, pwc, Silicon Valley Bank, CA Technologies, Greeberg Traurig, KSquare Law, and Sprint.

MassTLC Testifies on Digital Games Legislation

2011-10-06T12:36:00.002-04:00

TESTIMONY OF TOM HOPCROFT
PRESIDENT AND CEO, MASSACHUSETTS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP COUNCIL
SUBMITTED TO THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON REVENUE
October 6, 2011

Thank you for allowing me to submit testimony on House bills 751 and 3301.
My name is Tom Hopcroft and I am the President and CEO of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. MassTLC is the state's largest technology trade association, with more than 400 members, including global giants such as Google, Microsoft, AT&T, and Verizon; fast-growing Massachusetts-based companies such as Constant Contact, Acme Packet and Mathworks; and more than 300 small, dynamic companies in mobile, social media and other emerging technologies - including digital games.

I want to begin by thanking Representatives Binienda and Pedone for their leadership on this issue and their commitment to promoting the Commonwealth's innovation industries. As everyone here knows, while we continue to endure difficult economic times, our state is creating jobs at a far brisker pace than most, fueled first and foremost by the technology sector's robust health.

The bills you are considering today could be critical to helping continue that growth. As vibrant as our technology sector is today, we face incredible competition. Not all that long ago, there were two main tech centers in the world - Silicon Valley and Route 128; today we face challenges from not only other American cities and states but from around the world, from Shanghai to Bangalore to Tel Aviv. While we continue to have incredible advantages here in Massachusetts - great new companies springing up every day; the second largest concentration of venture capital in the world; the highest concentration of world class universities in the world; a highly skilled workforce - we face new challengers every day.

This is one of the reasons MassTLC decided to put a special focus on the digital games industry several years ago. In fact, a study we conducted in 2009 was one of the first to capture this dynamic new sector, revealing at the time that it was worth $2 billion and employed some 1200 people. It's also why we host the opening party for the PAXEast conference, one Boston's largest annual trade shows, attracting more than 60,000 industry leaders, designer, programmer and games aficionados.

This sector is poised for incredible growth and Massachusetts must capitalize on this opportunity. In fact, today's diverse tech economy requires us to seed a broad range of tech sub-sectors. Again, if we look back in time, our state's tech industry was once dominated by a single major sector: the minicomputer industry and its offshoots - software that ran the minicomputers; network gear that enabled them to talk to each other, and so on. Today's technology world is a collection of dynamic subsectors - mobile applications, digital advertising and marketing, robotics, social media, cloud-based software, network security, data analytics, just to name a few.

As a state, we need to be seeding each of these smaller sectors, not only to ensure that we reap the harvest from each but also to make sure we create an entire innovation ecosystem that is second-to-none. Innovators feed on one another and many of the core competencies and resources - from programming skills to venture funding knowledge - are shared among these varied subsectors. Now and in the future, our tech sector is unlikely to be dominated by any one single industry but will instead feature a broad array of robust sub-sectors, such as digital games.
The bills filed by Representative Binienda and Pedone are critical to those efforts. The competition for digital games companies is especially acute. Most know about the intense efforts by Quebec and others to lure companies to their regions. We know Hollywood and Silicon Valley will always have built-in advantages in this realm - Los Angeles' proximity to the entertainment industry; the Valley's critical mass of tech companies and investors. We, too, have built-in advantages: the tech infrastructure about which I've spoken and some tremendous success stories already here - companies like Turbine, Harmonix, Rockstar New England, and all the other innovative start-ups sprinkled across the region.

However, we can't take our current success for granted: targeted tax credits tied to increasing employment are an important first step. In fact, we at the council would argue that the Commonwealth should give serious consideration to broadening the tax credit to other key technologies. We would also argue that the state should guard against complacency and take every key advantage we currently enjoy - from our skilled workforce to our investment capital - and redouble our efforts to enhance those advantages.

Right now, for instance, in the midst of a recession that has left far too many unemployed, most of our technology companies have open positions. This is a disconnect we must not abide - open jobs and unemployed people. The state must do an even better job of producing, retaining, and retraining the kinds of workers we need to make our state the world's number one tech capital.

I would close with a final thought: none of us knows which company will turn into the next Google or Facebook. It is impossible for any technologist, analyst, investor, or state official to predict just who will succeed and who will not. But we do know this: continually planting the seeds for those next great companies is essential, not just because we want a chance to create the next big thing but because we know how vital start-ups and small companies are to job creation. No issue is more important to us now or in the future than putting people to work, and giving our citizens the opportunity to have exciting, innovative, and prosperous employment. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Scott Kirsner on Massachusetts Innovation and the Upcoming MassTLC Innovation unConference

2011-10-05T10:03:00.007-04:00

We recently had the chance to connect with Scott Kirsner to get his take on why Boston is the place where innovation happens and how the MassTLC Innovation unConference, coming up on October 28, fosters it. Scott is a BIG supporter of new ideas. He pens the Innovation Economy column for the Boston Globe, and is heavily involved with the events including Future Forward and the Nantucket Conference.

MassTLC: What makes Boston a great place for incubating innovations?

Scott: It is all about the smart, talented people in our city. It is about the students who go to the great schools in Boston and decide to stay and build their businesses here. And we have the companies to prove that Boston is indeed one of the most vibrant, energetic places where entrepreneurs have long-term impact. Among those that deserve recognition are Kiva Systems, which has revolutionized the logistics industry, A123 Systems, changing the face of the transportation business, Nuance, speech-enabling every aspect of our lives, and Zipcar, which is changing the way we think about transportation across the globe. But singling out just a handful of companies doesn't do justice to all the other great startups in Boston who will become household names in the next few years.

MassTLC: How does the unConference support the innovation you are describing?

Scott: The MassTLC Innovation unConferece is one of the largest gatherings of technology talent and entrepreneurs in Massachusetts. It gives people the unique chance to bump into each other, share ideas and soak in insights from the numerous sessions. It all helps boost the spirit of possibility in Boston. The only downside is that there is so much happening at the same time. People are bound to miss some of the sessions they want to be part of. I'm still haunted by the six or seven sessions that I did not have a chance to attend last year. This year I am going to buy 10 digital recorders and have them planted in each room, so I don't miss a great insight or conversation!

MassTLC: What would you tell an entrepreneur about the Innovation UnConference?

Scott: If you didn't have a chance to join the event last year, you definitely need to be part of it this October. Plan to get there first and leave last. Take advantage of the one-on-one sessions with the experts and make every attempt to meet as many people and make as many connections as possible. A ton of talented people will be together in one place – bound by the outpouring of help and energized by the collective booster energy.

MassTLC: What is one of your best unConference memories?

Scott: Last year Steve Vinter from Google spoke on how media production and consumption are forever changing. There were no slides, just smart people huddled in a room, discussing the future of media.

Join us for the MassTLC Innovation unConference on Friday, October 28 at the Hynes Convention Center. Click here to register. Follow MassTLC unConference on Twitter, Facebook, or join our unConference group on LinkedIn.

Thanks for Scratch Marketing+Media, the official PR agency of the MassTLC Innovation Unconference.

Volume vs. Value in Healthcare: the Dilemma, the Challenges and the Opportunities

2011-09-23T16:03:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's healthcare program focused on the shift from volume to value for care delivery. It was a fascinating discussion with Craig Sammit, CEO of Dean Health Systems in Madison, WI and Alex Baker, COO of Partners Community Healthcare (PCHI).

Alex Baker kicked off our program and shared network characteristics needed to succeed in population management and the care re-design themes in which PCHI is considering. From business intelligence and data warehousing to decision support, patient portals and referring physician tools. Check out Alex's presentation here.

Dean is one of the largest integrated health systems in the mid-west and a nationally recognized leader in accountable care. Craig discussed how their shift occurred originally out of necessity but quickly became the right thing to do to offer "value". He shared the tools and technologies they are currently using, how they have optimized the use of these technologies and the emerging technologies in which they are pursuing. Learn more from Craig's presentation here.

Thanks to Alex and Craig for their time and insights and our moderator, Dan Feinberg, Director of Health Informatics Graduate Program at Northeastern U. Also a special thanks to UKTI for hosting, and Mary Anne North and Barbara Bix for their help in creating another excellent MassTLC healthcare program.

What's Next?

Stay tuned for our next program scheduled to take place in mid-November. The focus will be on the role of technology to push the boundaries of Community-based care. We just started planning the session so if you are interested in learning more and sharing your insights, please email http://www.blogger.com/.

Energy Experts gather for panel on Data and Sustainabily Implementation

2011-09-22T21:05:00.007-04:00

On Tuesday, September 21st, executives from companies leading the way in Sustainability reporting met at Foley Hoag in Waltham as part of the MassTLC Sustainability Series, Without Data, Sustainability is an Empty Suit. Daniel Aronson, Director and Practice Leader of Sustainability Transformation at Deloitte, moderated a panel that included, Mark Greenlaw, VP Sustainability & Educational Affairs at Cognizant; Chris Davis, Schneider Electric's Building VP Global Strategic Alliances; Peter Gilbert, VP of Strategy for CA Technology's ecoSoftware; and Mark Buckley, VP Environmental Affairs at Staples. The Event Chair was Vanessa Fox, Partners In Productivity.

The take-away themes of the panel reflected:
- The relative newness of this area in business and the opportunities out there for new products.
- Issues around collecting and reporting the right data are difficult, but the panel represented four companies who are out there trying and benefiting from what they are learning.
- Finding a connection between the data and materialization in dollars will get the most impact out of your Sustainability projects.
- People are an important tool in Sustainability. Educating employees and building sustainability into each role of a company is the way to sustainability success.

The first question that Daniel asked was about defining Sustainability data how each of the panelists uses it. Peter Gilbert said that CA Technologies includes everything from building energy usage to employee commute time. Staples has a much larger supply chain to consider and is also very aware that their data has to be translated for different audiences. For example, a CFO will want the raw data presented differently than Facilities Manager. Former Cognizant CIO turned VP Sustainability and Educational Affairs at Cognizant, Mark Greenlaw stated that they try to follow the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as far as Energy consumption, carbon footprint and water usage. He went on to say that Sustainability goes beyond the environmental impact of a company and is also about the social and economic impact of that company. All panelists agreed that there is no ERP system (beyond buildings) for Sustainability yet.

Two of the biggest challenges in pitching any Sustainability project are budget and return on investment (ROI). Mark Greenlaw of Cognizant said that conservation measures are easy; it is the intangible benefits that are tougher to determine the ROI. Projects that include renewables are harder to justify since they have fluctuating ROI’s due to the political and price instability here and in other countries. At Staples, Mark Buckley looks at projects from a portfolio perspective and tries to find non-traditional funding for projects. One example was a PPA (power purchase agreement) for solar arrays on leased buildings. This allowed Staples to fund 35 MW of power rooftops. Interestingly, 80% of solar arrays in the US are owned by a third party.

During the audience participation a question was asked about employee engagement with regards to Sustainability. Chris Davis gave an example how in a deal with GE, they were very surprised that the employees wanted to be as involved as they did. Folks that had worked there for 40 years became reenergized as they cared about this stuff 'to solve the world's problems'. Chris also talked about how we can embed this thought process in the everyday to change behavior. He gave another example of how Lucid Designs created a dashboard to make energy consumption visible and accountable in college dorms. Staples works to build Sustainability into their corporate DNA and empowers employees to be accountable. Mark Greenlaw noted that much of Sustainability is about the people factor. Cognizant had a full featured buildings system installed, but found out that only half of the features were turned on!
Panelists were asked if there were standards and how they go about collecting data on their supply chain. All felt that standard forms for collecting and reporting are still lagging. Mark Greenlaw said that it is more effort right now to fill out the plethora of forms than to do the actual work of sustainability. Panelists felt there is a need for online tools to enter data one time and then be able to reference it for themselves and their supply chain.

Sustainability is a new field with lots of new opportunities for business to learn and work together. The process of data collection and reporting is evolving and will take unconventional, multi-disciplinary collaborations to start to yield real-world results. There is an economic benefit to more data and taking a long term holistic approach. We applaud these thought leaders who are putting their companies out there as pioneers in Sustainability.

MassTLC will continue the conversation at our next Sustainability Series panel on December 6th entitled, Sustainability: Don't Market to Key Audiences- Motivate Them!, where a panel of executives led by Jim Nail will further discuss how to engage employees and stakeholders in your Sustainability efforts. Click Here to Register!

Robotics Meeting Blog Post - September 19th, 2011

2011-09-19T16:55:00.002-04:00

Over twenty robotics executives, academics and enthusiasts convened at Kiva Systems for September's MassTLC Robotics Cluster. Cluster meetings take place every other month at a MassTLC member company. This was the first meeting since June so it was kicked off with introductions and the group talking about highlights in the robotics community over the past several months. Highlights included those found on the MHT robotics page, , as well as, these stories,
Member company Jaybridge teams up with Kinze, Rodney Brooks quoted in NYT article,

The group also talked about upcoming Robotics events in the Boston area including:
1.) Robotics Trends: RoboBusiness Leadership Summit - November 2-3, 2011, Boston Sheraton 2.) MassTLC Future of Robotics Summit - December 2, 2011, Microsoft NERD
3.) ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction - March 5-8, 2012,
4.) Back Bay Hilton Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA) - April 23-24, 2012 , (Paper submissions due November 15, 2011)

Rich Erb, Robotics Trends, gave the group an update on the RoboBusiness Leadership Summit (see above details) with over 25 sponsors and partners that will be at the event and a delegation from Denmark attending. MassTLC is helping to promote this event to our robotics community, members can use code RBP1 when registering for a $100 discount.

MassTLC had asked Bill Thomasmeyer formerly head of the Pittsburg Robotics Cluster and now working with Helen Grenier on the Robotics Tech Consortium (RTC) to speak and give an update on RTC activities. Bill's talk started with on an overview of the RTC (see attached slides) which helps its members to find and apply for government contracts through their own contractual relationship with the DOD. The RTC also gives Robotics a presence in Washington DC at the Robotics Caucus meetings. Bill also brought up new regulations that are being proposed that would require ITAR approval for all autonomous unmanned vehicles (AUV's) that could possibly be used off-road. These new regulations are not yet defined well which could make approval on new AUV's tough and expensive for robotics companies. MassTLC will work with Bill and the RTC on the appropriate response to these newly proposed regulations. Finally, Bill discussed a new competition that was created by the Innovation Accelerator and the RTC with funding from NSF for early stage Robotics start-ups called, RoboBowl. The first competition will be held on October 13th in Pittsburg at CMU in conjunction with the NSF Innovation Summit at CMU on October 14th. The next competition is slated for February or March of 2012 in Boston at MIT. MassTLC will help organize this event with the help of cluster members.

The meeting ended with a presentation by Benge Ambrogi of Kiva Systems and a tour of their new North Reading Headquarters which houses engineering, manufacturing and a large demo/test floor for the material handling robots. The presentation described how the company started and has grown to be the leader in automated material handling. The presentation included some great videos that can be found at, http://www.kivasystems.com/resources.

The next meeting of the MassTLC Robotics Cluster will be on November 8, 2011 at Myomo in Cambridge, MA.

Entrepreneur Walk of Fame Unveiled in Kendall Square

2011-09-16T22:41:00.025-04:00

It was a beautiful day in Kendall Square today as the world's first Entrepreneurial Walk of Fame was established to honor and celebrate entrepreneurial role models from Massachusetts and beyond. The Walk of Fame provides a fantastic opportunity to increase the visibility of entrepreneurship and to help inspire the next generation of innovators. Seven esteemed honorees who "took a risk with an idea" were immortalized with stars embedded in the sidewalk outside the Kendall Square Marriott.

Inaugural honorees include (descriptions from http://www.entwof.org/):

Thomas Edison (1847-1931), known for founding the companies that preceded General Electric. Edison devised numerous inventions that played a crucial role in modernizing technology from electric power generation being distributed on a mass level to homes and businesses to a stock ticker to recorded music and motion pictures, and there are many others with the same level of importance. Held 1,093 patents and founded 14 companies that combined with competitors in 1890 to form General Electric, currently one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world. And, the only company listed since the beginning of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. His entrepreneurial legacy can be seen in all walks of life, whether it be the utility Commonwealth Edison, the radio station WEEI (AM), or the Edison Medal for outstanding work in the electrical world. Edison quote: "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Bill Gates, known for Microsoft (2010 revenue: $62.5 billion) and philanthropy. He left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, the two began developing software for personal computers. Gates' foresight and vision for personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry. Microsoft employed 89,000 people in 2010. In 2000, Gates and his wife Melinda started a foundation to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning. He attended Harvard, but left before graduating. Gates quote: "Never before in history has innovation offered the promise of so much to so many in so short a time."

Bill Hewlet (1913-2001), known for Hewlett-Packard (Net revenue, 2010: $126 billion). His strength lay in circuit technology. He served in the Army during World War II, during which David Packard ran the company. Hewlett was on the staff of the Army's Chief Signal Officer and then headed the electronics section of the New Development Division of the War Department Special Staff. During this latter tour of duty, he was on a special U.S. team that inspected Japanese industry immediately after the war. In 1947, shortly after he returned to Palo Alto, Hewlett was named vice president of HP. He was elected executive vice president in 1957, president in 1964, and also was named chief executive officer in 1969. After receiving his Bachelor's degree from Stanford University, Hewlet attended and received his Masters of Science from MIT. Hewlet quote: "Men and women want to do a good job, and if they are provided the proper environment, they will do so."

Steve Jobs, known for Apple. Jobs designed, developed, and marketed (along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak) the Apple II series, which was one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface, leading to the creation of the Macintosh operating system. In 1986, Jobs acquired Graphics Group for $5 million and changed the name to Pixar (purchased by Disney in 2006 for $7.4 billion). He returned to Apple when its yearly revenue was $1.6 billion, and under his leadership, Apple grew to $15.5. billion in revenue by 2010. Educated at Reed College. Jobs quote: "Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful... that’s what matters to me."

Mitch Kapor, known for Lotus (acquired in 1995 for $3.5 billion). A pioneer of the personal computing industry who has been at the forefront of information technology for more than 30 years as an entrepreneur, software designed, and investor. Founded Lotus Development Corporation and designed Lotus 1-2-3, the office application which made the personal computer ubiquitous in the business world in the 1980s. Served as president (later as chairman) and chief executive officer of Lotus from 1982 to 1986, and as a director until 1987. In 1983, Lotus’s first year of operations, the company achieved revenues of $53 million; by 1984, revenues were $156 million. In 1985, Lotus employed 1,300 people. IBM acquired Lotus in 1995 for $3.5 billion. He received his B.A. in Cybernetics from Yale. Kapor quote: "Building a workplace which engages a diversity of employees and brings out their best makes a far greater contribution than financial success alone."

David Packard (1912-1996), known for Hewlett-Packard (Net revenue, 2010: $126 billion). Packard established Hewlett-Packard in 1939 with Bill Hewlett in Packard's garage with capital of $538. His strength lay in manufacturing processes. In 1947, he became president of the company, a post he held until 1964, when he was elected chairman of the board and chief executive officer. He received his BA and Master's in Electrical Engineering from Stanford Univeristy. Packard quote: "I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists solely to make money. Money is an important part of a company's existence, if the company is any good. But a result is not a cause. We have to go deeper and find the real reason for our being."

Bob Swanson (1947-1999), known for Genentech (acquired in 2009 for around $46 billion). Swanson co-founded Genentech in 1976 with biochemist Dr. Herbert Boyer. Swanson was a venture capitalist at the time. Served as director and chief executive officer of Genentech until February 1990; then became chairman of the board until he retired in December 1996. Genentech is said to have started the biotechnology industry. As of early 2011, Genentech employed over 11,000 individuals. Swanson also was a founding board member of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. He received his SB (chemistry) from MIT and SM from MIT Sloan. Swanson quote: "What we tried to do in the early days was to create a culture where anything was possible."

The project started when Leland Chung, Cambridge City Councilor, President and co-founder of the EntWoF, called on a group of leading entrepreneurial thinkers to brainstorm what government could do to encourage and support entrepreneurship in cities across America. "One of my top priorities as City Councilor is to transform government into an institution that helps people and makes our community an even better place to live," Cheung said. "I want to inspire people, especially kids, to pursue entrepreneurship to give back to the community and the world."

Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, co-founder and Chair of the selection committee of the EntWoF, hopes the legacy of the seven iconic honorees and their incredible stories will inspire others to answer the call of entrepreneurship. "The Entrepreneur Walk of Fame was created to celebrate the best of the best," Aulet said. "We want the Walk of Fame to serve as inspiration to future generations representing the men and women who have put themselves on the line, taken the risks and left a trail behind them for someone else to follow suit."

The founding sponsors of the EntWoF are the Kauffman Foundation, Ernst & Young, IDEO, the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, Latham and Watkins LLC, and Boston Properties.

Details of the Entrepreneur Walk of Fame can be found at http://www.EntWoF.org/. View NECN coverage:

To Compete or Non-compete

2011-09-15T21:20:00.003-04:00

On September 15th, a Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development heard testimony on H.2296, An Act Relative to the prohibition of noncompetition agreements, and S.932, An Act to prohibit restrictive employment covenants. The House bill would make "any contract that serves to restrict an employee or former employee from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind … deemed unlawful." The Senate bill would provide that any "written or oral contract or agreement arising out of an employment relationship that prohibits, impairs, restrains, restricts, or places any condition on, a person's ability to seek, engage in or accept any type of employment or independent contractor work, for any period of time after an employment relationship has ended, shall be void and unenforceable with respect to that restriction."

While there is not uniform consensus from the tech community, many feel that the current rules governing the enforcement of non-compete agreements should be reformed. Secretary of Housing and Economic Development, Greg Bialecki, testified to express the "strong support of the Patrick Administration for substantial reform of the current rules on the enforceability of non-competition agreements in Massachusetts." The following is taken verbatim from his testimony.

A key element of the Patrick Administration's economic development strategy has been to build on the strength of our world-class innovation economy. A key measure of success of our economic development and job creation policies and programs ought to be whether those polices and programs effectively support the innovation and entrepreneurship that has been our critical competitive advantage for so many year.

There is now a growing body of study and analysis reaching the conclusion that the enforcement of non-competition agreements can adversely affect the innovation economy. Economic research by Professor Richard Marx of Harvard and MIT, among others, has shown that the enforcement of non-competition agreements can have a demonstrable negative effect on the mobility of technology workers, especially of those with advanced, specialized skills. This can adversely affect our innovation economy in a variety of ways.

Job creation in the innovation economy often occurs in sudden large bursts. As their moments of greatest growth, Google and Facebook each hires literally thousands of workers in a short periods of time. Providing the talent needed to support such explosive growth may be considerably more difficult if employees are legally unable to move between jobs in the innovation economy. And if Massachusetts is not able to support such growth, then the most effective job creating companies may be pushed to grow to scale elsewhere.

The enforcement of non-competition agreements (often called "non-competes") may also limit the number of individuals who will leave their existing employment to lead new start-up firms of their own, another essential ingredient of a vigorous innovation economy. Alternatively, the rigorous enforcement of non-competes in Massachusetts may cause those individuals to leave the state to begin a new start-up firm or to pursue another new career opportunity, an equally unhappy outcome for the Commonwealth. Retaining our best talent is already a major challenge for the state.

In addition to its adverse effects on the overall economy, the enforcement of non-competition agreements also raises important questions of individual fairness. We have been presented with many examples of non-competes blocking the ability of individuals from taking advantage of job opportunities that would advance their careers or help them to better support their families without any apparent harm to the business prospects of their current employers.

You will certainly hear today from businesses and business groups would prefer to keep the current legal arrangements regarding non-competes intact. It is perfectly understandable why any individual business would prefer to maintain the status quo. The current law makes it considerably harder for employees to leave their current employees, whether due to the actual enforcement of a non-competition agreement, or more frequently, just due to the threat of enforcement. While that may be convenient for employers, it is not at all clear that is it necessary to their business success. Many of our large Massachusetts employers also have significant operations in California, where non-competes may not be legally enforces, and their business units are succeeding and thriving there. Moreover, while non-competes may be helpful to any given individual company, that does not necessarily mean that they are good for the overall health of the Massachusetts economy. And, it is the overall health of the Massachusetts economy that should be the deciding factor in your consideration of this issue.

One of these bills pending before you today calls for changes to our current rules regarding the enforceability of non-competes. The other calls for the end to such enforceability. Over the last several years, the Patrick Administration has suggested that the preferable course of action for Massachusetts might be to find ways to limit the most harmful effects of non-competition agreements without eliminating them outright. We applaud the efforts of many, including Representative Brownsberger and Representative Ehrlich, to find such a middle ground. This topic has been the subject of discussion for several years now, however, and it is no longer clear that any broad consensus can be reached on reform of non-competes. Indeed, it is no longer even clear that those who prefer the status quo are all that interested in reaching such a consensus. But there is in fact a pressing need for serious change. We urge all stakeholders to engage in a serious conversation about the shape and scope of that change. If the relevant stakeholders are not prepared to do so with a sense of urgency, then we ought to consider whether the outright elimination of enforceability altogether is the bes course of action for the Massachusetts economy.

Massachusetts Growth 'STEMs' from Innovation

2011-09-13T20:42:00.001-04:00

The number of children pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering and math – recently dubbed “STEM” education – continues to decline globally, but even more in the U.S. According to a 2010 report, baby boomer retirements will reduce the U.S. science and technology workforce by 50 percent by 2020.

Nationally, only 28 percent of high school students taking the SATs indicated an interest in pursuing a STEM career. Here in the Commonwealth, that percentage is 22 percent – shockingly low for a state with our technical reputation.

In 2009, Governor Patrick held a press conference at the MathWorks campus to announce the formation of the STEM Advisory Council, a public/private committee focused on stimulating Massachusetts students’ interest in studies and careers in the STEM disciplines. At the height of the recession, the topic of STEM education took center stage in the Commonwealth for a reason: It spurs the innovation that leads to long-term economic growth.

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This entry is written by Jack Little, President & Co-Founder of Mathworks and a Trustee of the MassTLC. This entry is part of a series of articles by members of the Mass Technology Leadership Council, outlining its action plan for fulfilling its “2020 Challenge,” — adding 100,000 new tech jobs by the end of the decade. Mathworks is a Natick-based mathematical computing software company, and makers of MATLAB and Simulink. More than 1,500 of the company's 2,200 staff are located in Massachusetts.

The Brain Gain – Retaining our Precious Talent

2011-08-16T20:49:00.002-04:00

“Our people are our most important assets.” There’s a reason why this phrase is ubiquitous: It’s true. Every economy and organization depends on its workforce to deliver brainpower and muscle to make things happen. In knowledge economies, the team with the best people wins. Here in Massachusetts, we have a significant competitive advantage when it comes to building teams with the world’s best talent.

Each year, 470,000 students walk through the doors of the 124 Massachusetts colleges and universities, a third of them come from other states or countries. As home to many of the best schools in the world, Massachusetts is a magnet for talent. We mint 103,000 new degrees and certificates yearly. This should be an ace up our sleeve when it comes to our state’s economic growth.

The challenge — and the opportunity — is to keep these stars here. We must do more to encourage our highly skilled talent to stay. According to a report by the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 50 percent of New England’s recent college graduates are leaving the area to pursue jobs elsewhere. Letting our educated, skilled talent exit the state hurts our economy. The knowledge economy we depend on here in the Commonwealth needs the crème de la crème of educated, skilled talent.

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This entry is part of a series of articles by members of the Mass Technology Leadership Council, outlining its action plan for fulfilling its “2020 Challenge,” — adding 100,000 new tech jobs by the end of the decade. The author of this article is Jenny Floren, CEO of Experience.com, author of The Innovation Generation, and a trustee of the Mass Technology Leadership Council.

Enhancing the Business Infrastructure in MA

2011-07-31T20:55:00.000-04:00

As we face the economic challenge of our lifetime, we in Massachusetts take solace in the fact that our business ecosystem is one of the most innovative in the world. In fact, CNBC just ranked Massachusetts No. 6 on its 2011 roster of America’s Top States for Business. This is valuable recognition in the near term, but it does not guarantee success in the long term. While celebrating the many assets and successes of our region, we must work to better understand and invest in overcoming structural deficiencies that will otherwise weigh on our ability to succeed in the global economy for generations.

So what does success look like, and what must we do to move forward aggressively? The MassTLC set a challenge of creating 100,000 new tech jobs by 2020. The council articulated its challenge as a number of jobs, but our aspiration is arguably more about the kind of business environment that would result in the rise of new companies and, of course, the associated jobs. The council’s challenge requires the creation of hundreds of small, innovative companies, continued expansion of our mid-market companies, and the emergence of a number of new $1 billion companies over the coming decade. We should not assume that it can be done with our current business infrastructure. We must address the structural impediments and opportunities that are real but not insurmountable.

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This article was written by Steve Krom, the Vice President at AT&T

MASS TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP COUNCIL SUPPORTS ROBOBUSINESS LEADERSHIP SUMMIT 2011

2011-07-28T16:29:00.002-04:00

FRAMINGHAM, MA - Robotics Trends today announced that the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (Mass TLC) has partnered with RoboBusiness Leadership Summit, the 7th annual international business development event for the robotics and intelligent systems industries taking place November 2-3, 2011 in Boston, Mass. http://www.robobusiness.com/.

This executive-level conference is designed for growth-oriented decision makers, executives, professionals and companies from across the robotics ecosystem who are serious about the commercial development and advancement of robotics. It will facilitate important discussions between both business and technology executives regarding growth strategies, investment opportunities and industry trends in major markets such as Consumer, Industrial, Education and Healthcare.

"We are delighted that the Mass Technology Leadership Council is supporting theRoboBusiness Leadership Summit as a technology parter," states Jim Wagner, General Manager of Events for Robotics Trends. "As a member-driven business association that addresses the critical leadership issues of innovative technology and technology-enabled companies, members of Mass TLC will certainly benefit from the networking and business information available at this executive level conference."

"MassTLC is excited about the return of RoboBusiness to Boston," said Tom Hopcroft, President & CEO of the Mass Technology Leadership Council. "It is a testament to the strength of the Robotics innovation cluster in New England that this program is happening here. We are happy to support Robotics Trends in their efforts to catalyze growth in the local robotics community."

Complete event information and registration are available at http://www.robobusiness.com/. More news on this event can be found at http://www.robobusiness.com/news/

Governor's Broadband Expansion Launches in Western Massachusetts

2011-07-26T16:24:00.022-04:00

Governor Deval Patrick joined public officials and firefighters at the Sandisfield Fire Department to kick-off construction of the MassBroadband 123 fiber-optic network project, one of the nation's largest projects of its kind. The 1,300 mile Internet backbone network will expand broadband access to more than 120 communities in western and north central Massachusetts, attract private investment, drive public and private sector innovation, and be a catalyst for both short and long term economic development in the region.

MassTLC, which recently issued a job growth challenge for the tech sector, has supported the Governor's broadband initiative, since it not only creates immediate tech jobs but paves the way for future growth in the sector, as entrepreneurs in western Massachusetts gain access to high speed connections and can more easily bring their products to market.

Governor Patrick launched the western Massachusetts effort early in his first term and worked with the legislature to create the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) and to provide state capital funding for broadband-related infrastructure projects. These resources, combined with an effective partnership with the Obama Administration and the Massachusetts congressional delegation, helped the MBI secure multiple federal grants worth more than $80 million, including $45.4 million in stimulus funds awarded through the highly-competitive National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).

The BTOP funds will be used to complete the MassBroadband 123 project which, over the next two years, will put hundreds of people to work building a fiber-optic network to serve 333,500 households and 44,000 businesses in an area with more than one million residents. The MBI, the Commonwealth's Information Technology Division, and the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security are providing $26.2 million in matching funds for the project.

To expand high-speed Internet access in the region, the MBI will attach fiber-optic cable to 35,000 existing utility poles in the project's service area. The MBI is a division of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC), a public economic development agency chartered by the Commonwealth to spur innovation across the state.

View Governor Patrick's Broadband accomplishments.

VIDEO: Broadband is heded to the Berkshires - WSHM Channel 3

Hundreds Gather for 2011 Mass Technology Leadership Awards Finalist Announcement

2011-07-15T10:28:00.020-04:00

Excitement was in the air last night as the Mass Technology Leadership Council announced finalists for the Council’s annual Awards program at a cocktail reception at Castile Ventures in Waltham. The event was attended by over 200 award nominees and other leaders from across the technology community.

Feverish networking and excitement filled the venue in anticipation for the announcement of the finalists. Thirty-three finalists were announced in individual and company categories. Fifteen finalists were named in the Product/Service of the Year Category and all will be featured on the Council website and have an opportunity to display, demo, and interact with attendees during the reception at the October 6th Awards Gala. The audience will then vote for the winner via their mobile devices during the event.

Finalists in Individual categories:

CEO of the Year - Privately Held
- Paul Brient, PatientKeeper
- Robert LeFort, Ember Corporation
- Mads Lillelund, Bluesocket, Inc.
- Chris Randles, SpaceClaim
- Debbie Theobald, Vecna Technologies

CEO of the Year - Publicly Traded
- Mark Aslett, Mercury Computer
- Andy Ory, Acme Packet
- Rick Reidy, Progress Software
- Alan Trefler, Pegasystems, Inc.

CIO of the Year
- Bob Barrett, A123 Systems
- Rick Broughton, Circor International
- James McCoy, Raytheon
- Bill Oates, City of Boston
- Bill Scudder, Sonus Networks

Emerging Executive of the Year
- Heidi Meisenkothen, Foresight Science & Technology
- Arun Nagarajan, Pyxis Mobile
- Tracy Rosenthal-Newsom, Harmonix Music Systems
- David Samuels, EnerNOC
- Al Tahn, Raytheon

Finalists in Company Categories:

Company of the Year - Privately Held
- Acquia
- CSN Stores
- Endeca
- Karmaloop
- Kiva Systems

Company of the Year - Publicly Traded
- Analog Devices
- Athena Health
- iRobot Corporation
- LogMeIn
- Skyworks

Deal of the Year
- EMC
- ITA Software
- Netezza
- Phase Forward

Finalists who will demo and be voted upon by the audience at the October 6th Gala include:
Product of the Year

- AisleBuyer
- Apperian
- Currensee
- Digital Lumens
- Gazelle
- Gemvara
- GrabCAD
- iWalk
- KangoGift
- Myomo
- Peer Transfer
- SpaceClaim
- Strohl Medical
- TripAdvisor
- Vecna Technologies

The Council received well over 200 quality submissions during the open nomination process. A committee of Council Trustees and local thought leaders were involved with the selection process that narrowed the slate to those announced last night. The finalists will be further considered over the coming weeks by a committee of Council Trustees, local thought leaders, members of the press, investors and entrepreneurs. The winners announced on Thursday October 6th, at the Awards Gala at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. Details and advance registration available at: http://www.masstlc.org/2011awardsfinalists.html

Thank you to our Awards Program Sponsors: Greenberg Traurig, Microsoft, Oracle, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Silicon Valley Bank, CA Technologies, K Square Law and Sprint.

Microsoft's Qi Lu on the Future of the Web and Search

2011-07-14T20:24:00.005-04:00

I met up with Microsoft Online Services Division President Dr. Qi Lu at eVoo in Cambridge for an informal dinner with several of the region's tech and investment leaders. Lu, who has had quite a remarkable journey from poverty to his current post, was recruited out of Yahoo by Steve Ballmer himself and charged with revitalizing Microsoft's online efforts in search and advertising (including Bing), Web software, services, and infrastructure. Prior to dinner, I dropped by an xconomy event at Microsoft NERD to hear Lu's presentation on the "Future of Web and Search" where he outlined his vision for where the web was going, how Microsoft is shaping its future, and how search will be completely transformed. This video covers the highlights of his talk and reactions from several of us in attendance.

Verizon 4G LTE Innovation Center Opens in Waltham

2011-07-12T15:54:00.004-04:00

Almost a year to the day after I participated in groundbreaking ceremonies, Verizon's 20,000 square foot Innovation Center celebrated its grand opening with a showcase of innovative new solutions that are leveraging the Verizon 4G LTE technology.

The Verizon Innovation Center, located at the heart of the 128 high-tech corridor, was conceived as a place where companies large and small, entrepreneurs and others could come together to create the next generation of products that wirelessly connect people, places and things. It was evident from the showcase of companies already in the Center that Verizon and its partners are ready to roll up their sleeves and help propel the development of solutions that leverage the possibilities of 4G LTE.

"The Verizon Innovation Center is named after the core of who we are and what we stand for as a company: innovation. From the outset of this project, Verizon understood that the potential for innovation is bigger than Verizon alone," said Dan Mead, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless.

The Innovation Center, which is designed to enable and showcase products, services and solutions that take advantage of the power, speed and reach of Verizon's 4G LTE wireless network, also encompasses laboratory space where engineers and developers from across the LTE ecosystem can create and build a new generation of connected products -- the kind of solutions that will help drive the growth of 4G LTE. More than 300 technology experts work at the Innovation Center, which is comprised of two buildings with more than 135,000 square feet of labs and office space in one building and 60,000 square feet with both showcase and office space in the building being opened today.

The ground-breaking for the new building and updates to the labs began in April 2010, and both projects were completed earlier this year. During construction, engineers began work in the Innovation Center Labs, in October 2009, where a replica of Verizon Wireless' 4G LTE network was built to allow companies to develop and test products before the commercial network launched in December 2010. The replica 4G LTE network still exists, so developers can work on products and solutions in the lab environment, without impacting the commercial network. To date, more than 30 products have been developed and demonstrated in the new building as well as at industry trade shows, customer meetings and other venues.

Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson are founding participants in the Innovation Center, and Cisco and Samsung Mobile are premier participants. Engineers and other subject matter experts from these companies work side by side with Verizon engineers on projects generated by the Innovation Center labs, and each company has a permanent display highlighting 4G LTE technology and solutions for visitors to experience on the main floor of the building.

The Verizon Innovation Center was designed by the architecture firm Nelson, in collaboration with content provider Downstream. John Moriarty and Associates was the construction manager. The Verizon Innovation Center is expected to achieve LEED Gold certification.

Later this summer, Verizon expects to mark opening day of a sister Innovation Center on the West Coast. The Application Innovation Center, located in downtown San Francisco, will be a place for application developers to hash out ideas, polish applications, and test them on Verizon's 4G LTE network before bringing them to consumers or businesses.

For more information about the Verizon Innovation Center, including a list of participating companies, visit http://innovation.verizon.com/. For more information about Verizon Wireless and its 4G LTE network, visit www.verizonwireless.com/lte.

This blog post was compiled based on remarks during the grand opening event and press release materials provided by Verizon Wireless.

Help Us Get Direct Air Service to Israel -Brief Survey

2011-06-28T13:34:00.005-04:00

As part of MassTLC's 2020 Challenge (to drive 100,000 jobs in the tech sector this decade), we have identified the lack of non-stop air service to certain major innovation regions around the globe as an inhibitor to growth here in Massachusetts. One such region is Israel. We believe that direct flights between Boston and Tel Aviv via El Al would be a catalyst for company formation and growth here in Massachusetts. But we need your help.

El Al has multiple expansion opportunities in the US and we need to demonstrate that Boston should top their list. We are working with the Massachusetts Port Authority, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, other key organizations that generate large amounts of travel to Israel, and a top consulting team, expert in aviation, with strong links to El Al, and are planning to make our case to El Al in the fall.

A local survey firm, Strategic Partners, has been retained by Massport to conduct a survey of businesses, organizations and individuals about their current and expected travel to Israel. In order to avoid duplicate entries and to avoid spamming you with multiple copies of the survey, we are asking those who are interested in taking the survey and supporting the strategic and business case to El Al about nonstop Boston-Tel Aviv service Opt-In here to receive the survey. This step will take less than a minute.

Those who have opted-in should expect to receive a survey to follow in the coming weeks. We appreciate your participation in this important initiative to help grow jobs here in Massachusetts.

Mobile Leaders Convene on Growing MA Mobile Sector

2011-06-24T13:35:00.007-04:00

MassTLC's mobile cluster welcomed Micah Adler, CEO, President and Founder, Fiksu, Raj Aggarwal, CEO, Localytics, Laura Fitton, Founder and CEO, oneforty.com, Brent Grinna, Founder & CEO, EverTrue, and Miha Mikek, CEO and Founder, Celtra, at a recent advisory board dinner focused on what we can do as a community to grow and retain high potential mobile companies in Massachusetts.

A lively discussion ensued about the virtues of the MA mobile ecosystem, including structural strengths like proximity to Europe, capital, and talent. There was a strong consensus that we need to develop strategies to address the high-end technical talent shortage and develop better communication/ media coverage for all that is happening in the MA mobile ecosystem.

We also conducted regular cluster business including updates on recent/future cluster programs, the Internship Network, Future Tech Leaders program, and welcoming of new Council members (who are in the mobile sector or are outside the sector but have mobile apps) since our March 28th meeting. These include: Aerva, Brass Monkey, Carbonite, GoodData, MobiFlex, Mobiquity, Modiv Media, Serena Software, Stratascope, and Verivue.

Mobile Network Innovation & Evolution

2011-06-22T13:15:00.017-04:00

MassTLC's Mobile cluster gathered for a Breakfast Seminar focused on Mobile Network Innovation and Evolution: Exploring Two Perspectives of Network Topologies. Pete Dawson from Sprint initiated the discussion with an analysis of how carrier ecosystems bridge applications and end users, as well as outlining the middle ground where innovation occurs.

The following image illustrates the different perspectives: The carrier ecosystem was defined as the infrastructure, network support systems, devices and respective operating systems. The group observed that there are a number of factors and different perspectives to be weighed in any innovation discussion:

- Application developers are able to take greater risks without regard to service level, privacy, security and other potential backlash hot spots;
- Carriers have to be focused on the value of what they are delivering to their installed base of millions of end users and therefore must be more risk averse; and
- The industry is restricted by bandwidth constraints.

Roundtable participants included Raj Aggarwal, CEO of Localytics, Tasos Tsolakis, CIO & EVP of Iron Mountain, as well as Asshu Virmani, Senior Director of Marketing, Sonus Networks. Each shared their viewpoints of the carrier ecosystem and how it is affects innovation in each of their respective domains: application development, enterprise management and network infrastructure.

As the seminar drew to a close, Pete invited the panelists to summarize key takeaways from the discussion. Raj pointed out that developers want carriers to provide a greater access to customer data so they can develop more useful applications. He noted that developers want data plans to remain unlimited so the carrier revenue model does not inhibit their ability to innovate and gain customers. Aashu agreed and noted that from a network perspective end user information should be readily available. Tasos, representing the enterprise perspective, focused on monetizing both 'ends of the pipe', referring to innovation on one end and the end user on the other.

Pete closed the seminar noting that whether we like it or not, the middle ground for innovation involves dollars. He noted that monetization is a substantial factor in determining where innovation comes from and how the ideas are cultivated. He wrapped up with one final question to the audience, "How do we monetize innovation and drive that home in a monetized world?"

MassTLC CEO Testifies Before Special Joint Committee on Redistricting

2011-06-18T21:20:00.002-04:00

MassTLC CEO Tom Hopcroft testified before the special joint committee on redistricting at a hearing at Framingham State University. The Committee is charged with studying and proposing "a new division of the Commonwealth into 9 Congressional districts under the United States Constitution, 40 Senatorial and 8 Councillor districts under Section 2 of Article CI of the Amendments to the Constitution, as amended, and 160 Representative districts under section 1 of said Article CI." Based on population change data from the census, redistricting is done every ten years. For more on redistricting in MA, please see http://www.malegislature.gov/District. In the photo above, Congressman Markey is seen testifying on his record representing the Seventh Congressional District.

Turning up midmarket growth engines in Massachusetts

2011-06-10T11:00:00.001-04:00

Guest Post by Ed Abrams, Vice President, Midmarket Strategy, IBM

Did you know that together, midsize and small companies are responsible for nearly 65 percent of the global GDP? They represent more than 90 percent of all businesses and employ over 90 percent of the world's workforce. In the United States, midsize businesses -- those with 100-1,000 employees -- are the engines of our economic growth, and innovative technology is the fuel.

Opportunity is knocking for Massachusetts-based midsize companies. More and more forwardlooking companies are investing in innovation and technology to transform their businesses, drive profitability, and expand into new areas. According to a new global study of chief information officers by IBM, 72 percent of CIOs at outperforming midsize organizations are focused on integrating business and technology to drive innovation.

The top technology priorities for these companies whose growth is outpacing the industry are business analytics, mobility solutions, and cloud. And the good news is that business analytics, cloud, and predictive technologies, once reserved for big companies with big budgets, are now more affordable and easier to use for midsize firms. The study shows that 83 percent of midmarket CIOs surveyed identified analytics -- the ability to extract actionable insights from "Big Data" -- as their top priority investment area, while their demand for cloud computing increased 50 percent since 2009.

With a business analytics solution, firms can use existing data to gain new insights and a deeper understanding of past business performance that can then help them make smarter decisions about their business and also help forecast future business trends.

For example Papa Gino’s Pizzeria, based in Boston, chose an analytics solution from a local IBM Business Partner, QueBit, to integrate and analyze the tons of retail and operational data the chain collects daily from numerous franchise stores. With timely access to trends through easy-to-use dashboards, district managers and regional vice presidents can anticipate staffing needs, increase the efficiency of product replenishment, improve accuracy of pizza-delivery-time estimates, and define long-term business strategies.

Massachusetts is an ecosystem rich with the people, connections, institutions, and collaborations that feed the innovation economy. The Mass Tech Hub is home to more than 10,000 technology companies, it has more venture capital available per capita than anywhere in the nation, and innovators file more patents per capita than anywhere in the world. IBM solutions developed right here in Massachusetts -- from retail to electronic banking -- are helping to advance the Commonwealth's economic prosperity and quality of life for citizens around the globe. We look forward to continuing to build a smarter planet together.

Improving Customer Satisfaction and the Customer Experience by Leveraging Operations

2011-06-07T09:30:00.001-04:00

It was another great turnout this morning as the MassTLC SaaS/Cloud cluster wrapped up their SaaS business model series with a session on Improving Customer Satisfaction and the Customer Experience by Leveraging Operations. Skip Besthoff from Castile Ventures led off the session with an explanation on why we care about customer service and the impacts of poor customer service; lost revenue and high support costs. In order to on-board customers, the customer experience must be baked in from the very beginning. He also shared key principles for success:

- At minimum, responsiveness; at baseline, proactive; at best, can anticipate
- High ease of use, UI matters
- Efficient
- Multiple touch points

We next heard from four practitioners; Lou Guercia, CEO of Scribe, Joshua Herzig-Marx from IncentiveTargeting, who just announced they have teamed with Groupon to bring social buying to the grocery retail and Consumer Packaged Goods industry, Michael Monteiro, co-founder of Buildium and Joshua Porter, co-founder and VP of Customer Experience with Performable. Each shared their processes and the technologies they use to elevate customer service and the customer experience. Josh from Performable shared that everyone at Performable does support and the team rotates responsibility daily. He shared their core customer satisfaction principles:

- Customer service = personal relationships
- Under promise, over deliver
- Whatever happens, solver their problem
- The role of helper is best
- Embrace the evangelists
- Customer Satisfaction improves your product, period!

Presentations can be found on SlideShare. We look forward to working with our members on the programming for the fall. Please share any ideas and suggestions you have with Christine@masstlc.org.

Ever wondered what sales enablement means?

2011-06-03T15:00:00.005-04:00

Ever wondered what sales enablement means? At Friday's Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council's Sales and Marketing Summit entitled Increasing Volume and Velocity through Sales Enablement and Alignment, Brad Holmes, VP and Practice Leader at Forrester Research, told a room full of sales and marketing executives that sales enablement is:

"A strategic ongoing process that equips all client-facing employees with the ability to consistently and systematically have a valuable conversation with the right set of customer stakeholders at each stage of the customer's problem-solving life cycle to optimize the return of investment of the selling system."

Nevertheless, he informed us, this is still the Holy Grail for most companies. Instead, sales people continue to sell features and benefit to buyers who perceive their products as commodities.

The problem, Holmes says is that product, sales, and marketing teams, working in silos, produce a plethora of disparate sales and marketing programs. These initiatives cost a lot, overwhelm the sales force, and fail to address customer needs.

Instead, Holmes says, sales and marketing teams need to collaborate to identify customer problems, and the paths these customers take to resolve them. Only then, will these teams succeed in developing the content it takes to have the meaningful conversations that customers demand from their vendors of choice.

Next, Cynthia Stephens, VP Marketing, and Joseph Murphy, EVP Sales, from ByAllAccounts described how they've collaborated to do just that.
Their process included reorganizing Sales and Marketing to narrow the focus of individual roles, training, and changing the compensation system.
Stephens and Murphy attribute their success to:

- aligning customer sales, marketing, and partner goals,
- Identifying their customers' journeys
- Taking prospects down the conversion path

Major steps include attracting prospects with webinars that offered thought leadership, entering the leads into their marketing automation system, and then nurturing them until prospects accept an invitation for a conversation with Sales. These efforts have resulted in a 250% increase in sales generated from marketing leads. Moreover, 20% of these opportunities close within 30 days.

Kathie Johnson, VP Marketing, and Mike Segal, SVP Enterprise PLM Business Transformation from Dassault Systemes Americas also attribute their success to collaboration between Sales and Marketing. In their case, they paired individuals on the Sales and Marketing teams with each other.

Johnson outlined the four elements of the collaboration: mission, communications, process, and tools. Because her organization is much larger, and the sales cycle is much longer, Johnson noted that Dassault Systemes relies heavily on processes and tools to remove ambiguity and replicate success.

Examples of interesting tools that the Dasssault systems team mentioned include:
- an internal social community platform for building networks and sharing information
- a customer conference that exists purely to close business
- microsites at OEMS that these organizations use to promote Dassault solutions to their own divisions

Their presentation was a great lead in to the final panel on "Tools, Technologies, & Processes that Drive Sales Efficiency. Speakers included executives from Brainshark, Constant Contact, Hubspot, and Oracle.

Dave Fitzgerald, EVP Brainshark, noted that the existence of technology has changed the sales process from one of control to one of facilitation. Nevertheless, he said technology is rarely at issue when problems crop up. It's easy to install, easy to learn, and easy to use.

All of the technologies that Brainshark uses to enable Sales are in the cloud. At $3500/user, he considers technology a bargain.

The rest of his presentation focused on his company's sales process and the metrics he needs to achieve at each stage. Like the speakers before him, he stressed the importance of constant communications. Fitzgerald also emphasized that it's essential to establish the metrics upfront so that you can identify where problems occur if the system breaks down.

Jean-Paul Guilbault, VP of Sales, Constant Contact, explained that his company's average prospect has fewer than 10 employees. Therefore, they rely heavily on mass communications to generate leads and technology to accelerate conversions. Examples include software that prospects can try before they buy and self-directed education through video. Like Fitzgerald, he has a system for identifying who is stuck. This enables him to direct sales people where they will have the greatest impact.

Andy Mitchell, Senior Director, at Oracle also starts with metrics. In his case, the goal is to surface opportunities.

At a macro level, Oracle's business analytics tell the company where to focus the sales force. For example, if a particular geographic territory has a poor economy, Oracle can ratchet down the sales people there, and shift resources to areas that are more prosperous. At a micro level, Oracle uses business analytics to determine on which products to focus--using past purchases by like companies as a guide.

Like others, Mitchell stressed the importance of listening to customers to tailor solutions to their needs. He noted that technology facilitates listening. Because prospects have easy access to product information, online, sales people no longer need to spend time describing or demoing the company's solutions.

Andrew Quinn, "The Sales Doctor", at Hubspot described steps that his company is taking to automate sales data entry. Now, sales people can choose from a menu to indicate why they are disqualifying a lead, or to note what action they took to follow up. Then the system automatically schedules the next event on their calendars.

Similarly, sales people press a button when they close a sale. This then automatically routes appropriate information to an account manager, an implementation consultant, finance, and in some cases a migration team to ensure rapid follow up and billing.

As Quinn notes any customer relationship management system is only as good as the information that Sales puts in it. Perhaps most important, this system gives management an easy way to track sales performance at every stage of the sales cycle.

All in all, it was an informative morning. Thanks to the speakers and panels, the audience got lots of great ideas for leveraging technology to increase revenues. Nevertheless, a key takeaway was that people are more important than ever.

Winning still depends on understanding what customers want--and doing it their way. What's changed is who controls the conversation--and when, where, and how customers get the information they need.

Technology can accelerate that process. It helps identify opportunities; it enables Sales and Marketing to better coordinate their activities; and it frees sales people listen and sell, rather than prospect and present.

Presentations from the event can be accessed on SlideShare. A full recording of the sessions, made available by KnowledgeVision is available here.

Guest post contributed by Barbara Bix, BB Marketing Plus

Its Time to Innovate in Providing Access to Startup Capital

2011-05-25T20:59:00.000-04:00

Economic indicators tell us the economy is rebounding. Massachusetts relies on innovation and new companies to supply new high-paying jobs. Boston does have a concentration of repeat entrepreneurs, ideas, world-class universities and access to startup capital. But how many startups is enough to ensure Massachusetts’ leadership in tech innovation and the resulting economic health and jobs that implies?

As we continue the slow recovery, we must marshal our strengths to nurture genius and industry here, and I know the capital is there to support it. Mobile is a great example. Some claim Boston has lost the mobile and social media waves to the West Coast. Well, according to the mobile cluster of the Mass Technology Leadership Council there are more than 400 mobile startups employing 30,000 people in Massachusetts. We are sitting on a strong knowledge base of carrier and enterprise infrastructure, and the next generation of media and content-related expertise. Not only has Boston shined in the traditional area of infrastructure (such as Starent), but we have also produced some of the early and leading companies in mobile advertising (Third Screen, Quattro, et al).

Click Here to Read More...

This article is written by Carl Stjernfeldt, Trustee of MassTLC and General Partner at Castile Ventures. This is the third of 12 articles outlining the MassTLC 2020 Challenge — creating 100,000 new technology jobs by 2020

The Cleantech Ecosystem in New England

2011-05-17T14:00:00.001-04:00

Today Cleantech is one of the top three venture capital backed sectors in the US with 17% of investments made in Energy. In Q1 of 2011 Cleantech investment was up over 50% from Q1 of 2010 but this only tells part of the story. The Cleantech sector has grown tremendously over the past four years and although investment is up overall, the number of deals and especially dollars invested in seed funding has dropped.

Peter Rothstein, President of the New England Clean Energy Council, painted a complex landscape of the Cleantech sector for attendees of the May 17th MassTLC seminar, The Cleantech Ecosystem in New England. New England is home to over nine clean energy incubators, world-class research institutions, including Boston University and MIT, and one of the nation’s most active Cleantech venture capital pools. Still, a Cleantech start-up without a revenue stream will have difficulty raising money. “Even tougher,” added Marcie Black of Bandgap Engineering, ”is when you have a capital intensive product like a solar panel”. Bandgap’s solution to this challenge is to work within the current parameters of solar wafer manufacturing while still producing a more efficient product.

Martin Flusberg of Powerhouse Dynamics has been shipping energy management software for a year now and with a form of revenue they have been able to raise some seed capital. Strong feelings arouse on the east coast versus west coast funding, the later tends to have more deals and include more Series A deals.

Stuart Patterson has been there. With his company Equilibrium unable to find funding in 2009 he sold the company to EnerNoc. This was lucky for Nexamp a renewable power and clean energy solution provider. Staurt, CEO of Nexamp, wanted the company to be a one stop shop for Energy Management software and services, and renewable energy hardware and implementation. With their successful implementation of solar projects over the past several years though, the company focus had been more on renewable projects and not as much on the software side. With their acquisition of SolVera, Stuart is hoping to focus on the software side of the business while his co-CEO John Malloy will help to run the solar and renewable side of the business.

PepperDash is a self-funded company using revenues from products to fund work on what Howard Nunes, CEO, called a Predictive Facilities Management System. Howard discussed how their company is still in the proto-type phase and currently looking for partnerships to deploy their systems. Their model of self-funding gets around the challenge of finding early funding in New England, but it can also slows down the product development cycle.

Marcie Black, CTO and founder of Bandgap Engineering had always been interested in clean energy and saw it as a way to solve many of the world’s problems. While working at Los Alamos she started Bandgap but did not find the support she needed to move her idea forward until she moved herself and the company to the Boston area. She stated that it was very important for her company to be near an innovation cluster like the one in New England. Having VC backing from the east and west coast, as well as, overseas, Marcie is confident Bandgap’s technology will go to market more quickly.

Tom Zarella, CEO of SustainX, doesn’t worry about funding. The compressed air energy storage company that spun out of Dartmouth College just raised $20 million which should bring them close to commercialization. Their unique technology and ability to reach technological milestones consistently has given investors the confidence to overlook risks involved in Cleantech investments.

The discussion then turned to job creation and market growth. The panelists expressed frustration in the fact that there is not a comprehensive national policy. Each state has different incentives and mandates which makes it challenging to enter new markets in the US. On the other hand, European markets tend to be more standardized. Partnering with utility companies can help to overcome issues of market entry, but they are very slow adopters.

As Peter Rothstein wrapped up the panel, he talked of the future with some hope that new capital and new companies will continue to come to New England. The Cleantech ecosystem is what drives job growth and in turn capital growth. As more companies are created in the ecosystem, they require more services and suppliers creating more jobs.

Since there were more questions than time during the discussion, we would like to continue the conversation on the blog. Please post any questions you had of the panelists and we will post their answers.

Here are some additional links on Cleantech in New England and the panelists’ company websites,
www.cleanenergycouncil.org/blog/
http://news.cnet.com/greentech/
http://www.nsiv.org/Cleantech
http://www.bandgap.com/
http://www.nexamp.com/
http://www.pepperdash.com/
http://www.powerhousedynamics.com/
http://www.sustainx.com/

MassTLC: Local Mobile Sector Employs 30,000

2011-05-13T21:02:00.001-04:00

In a report released at its spring meeting in Cambridge today, the Mass Technology Leadership Council said that the Greater Boston mobile technology sector now employs 30,000 people in 400 companies.

The industry association’s Mobile Cluster conducted the study of employment at the various companies. MassTLC said in a press release that Massachusetts has “created a mobile hotbed” with growth driven in large part by young entrepreneurs focused on application development.

Click Here to Read More...

MassTLC Spring Meeting - The Global Impact of Mobility

2011-05-13T12:00:00.021-04:00

Over 300 entrepreneurs, investors and executives jammed the ballroom at the Kendall Square Marriott for the Council's Spring Meeting, The Global Impact of Mobility. Kicking off the meeting Steve Krom, Council Trustee and VP & GM New England, AT&T, announced that recent research conducted in partnership with BostInnovation revealed over 400+ mobile companies in the region Read full press release here

The morning continued with a lively interactive fireside chat between Kara Swisher, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and George Bell, CEO, JumpTap. Kara's prediction? It's all about SoMoLo! Translation: social mobile local- take note entrepreneurs!!

Read more highlights here.

Click Here To View the Mobile Eco System Brochure

Kara Swisher learns more about the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem at CIC...
Following the Spring Meeting Kara joined local entrepreneurs at CIC for an informal conversation on innovation in Massachusetts. There were no wall flowers in the room and the lively (understatement) conversation covered everything from the cool technologies they are working on to the inside scoop on Kara's new hoodie....
A special thanks to Tim Rowe and the folks at CIC for providing us with the space and Stephanie Castilla, CTO, Leaf Holdings; Walt Doyle, President & CEO, Where, Inc.; Brian Halligan, CEO & Founder, HubSpot; Philip Jacob, VP Technology Time, Inc.; Steve Kelly, CEO, Myomo; Matt Lauzon, Founder & President, Gemvara ; Mihael Mikek, CEO & Co-Founder, Celtra; Steve O'Leary, Managing Director, Aeris Partners; Katie Rae, Managing Director, Tech Stars; Meredith Flynn Ripley, President & CEO, HeyWire; David Rose, CEO, Vitality; Tim Rowe, Founder & President, Cambridge Innovation Center; Victoria Song, Associate, Flybridge Capital; and Gus Weber, EIR, Polaris Venture Partners for helping show Kara the amazing energy pouring out of the Massachusetts entrepreneurial ecosystem!!

Mobile Jobs Coverage
MassTLC: Local mobile sector employs 30,000
Study: Mobile industry employs 30,000 in Mass.
Mobile is Hot in Massachusetts: Mobile Companies Employ 30,000 People [Study]
Mobile Makes it in Mass

More Highlights from MassTLC's Global Mobile Spring Meeting

2011-05-13T11:00:00.000-04:00

The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council's conference on the global impact of mobility kicked off with an overview of the state of the global wireless industry. The moderator, Professor Iqbal Z. Quadir of MIT began by noting that while mobile phones are largely a convenience for inhabitants of the wealthy countries in the Northern hemisphere, they may be the key to prosperity for the less fortunate residents of the Southern hemisphere.

He reported that due to the declining cost of digital communications, more than 50% of the population in many of these countries, now have cell phones. In addition to using their phones for person-to-person communications, residents of Southern hemisphere countries also use them to pay bills and salaries. As a result, former cash economies now operate on credit.

The increasing use of cell phones has created business opportunities for software that can process transactions, validate the identity of users, and prevent money laundering. Moreover, countries in East Africa now want to become outsourcing hubs.
One panelist, Steve Whittaker, of BT, commented that thanks to the proliferation of cell phones, and the advent of the cloud, cities can now aggregate large amounts of data and track movement. This information enables them to monitor human traffic and better plan infrastructure.

Another panelist, Nick Sullivan, a fellow at The Fletcher School, observed that cell phone adoption rates differ across markets--and that circumstances drive adoption. In Kenya, the built-in flow of money from city workers to their families in rural areas created a natural application. There, the carrier with 80% market share, and a trusted brand, did a great job of setting up a network of self-employed agents to load money onto the phones at one end and unload money at the other.

In India, panelist Dr. Harmeet Singh of Tejas Networks told us that phones connect farmers to their end market. Now, farmers can quickly check commodity prices and calculate margins without leaving home.

The Q&A session focused on our lack of visibility into what's going on in the rest of the world, the North/South digital divide, the importance of the last mile, and queries about who will capture revenue: banks, carriers, applications or phone vendors.

Next up was a fireside chat with Kara Swisher, co-producer and co-host of D: All Things Digital moderated by George Bell, President and CEO, Jumptap. Those who have heard her will understand when I say that Kara's quips were the highlight of the conference. Unfortunately, I was not able to capture her quick repartee here--you had to be there.

Kara opined that 2011 is very different from the 2000 bubble in that entrepreneurs today place much more focused on revenue, although eyeballs are still important. When asked to identify a winner, she picked Groupon noting that getting local merchants as customers has always been a tough problem to solve.

Kara observed that she had recognized the importance of mobile early on, yet, even she was surprised at the rate at which adoption happened. She discussed how hard it's been for many organizations, especially large ones, to shift business models. For example, newspapers assumed mobile was an adjunct business, yet she asserted mobile is and will be at the center going forward.

Both Kara and George said the biggest change with mobile is that the online and physical worlds are becoming one as devices become more self-aware (due to onboard geo-location). Nevertheless, both speakers are still looking for devices to capitalize on this capability and become better at anticipating their needs. For example, George said that applications should open themselves when appropriate rather than waiting for him to command them to do so.

Kara said that for the first time, the business world is lagging the consumer world. Thanks to iPhones and apps, people's business people have higher expectations of the technology they use at work.

When everything is a screen, it ultimately alters when, where, and how people work. Office space will eventually go away.

Today, Kara said people point their phones at things to find out what they are. Someone asked whether that raises privacy issues when we start pointing our phones at others to discover their identity. This conversation led into one about companies increasing thirst for knowledge about individuals--which is powerful and dangerous at the same time.

After these introductory sessions, the audience split into breakout groups for two hours to explore topics such as mCommerce, mHealth, mobile innovation, and media convergence in greater depth before reconvening for a final session. Kara moderated this last session where the panel of entrepreneurs and VCs discussed ways to make money in mobile. Throughout the day, breaks enabled participants to visit various exhibitors who displayed a wide range of products and services to enhance the mobile experience.

Guest post contributed by Barbara Bix, BB Marketing Plus

Software Development: Secrets to Achieving Unprecedented Rates of Growth and Innovation

2011-05-04T10:00:00.005-04:00

More than 100 techies turned out Tuesday morning at the British Consulate in Cambridge to learn how successful companies operate at unprecedented levels of business velocity; rapidly adapting and scaling to changing market conditions and customer needs. Jeff Hammond, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research led off the event with a terrific keynote presentation. Jeff focused on the team, building a culture and questioned the audience on what to look for when hiring. He shared a few tips shown below and his presentation can be found here.

Three Steps to a High Performance Team

1. Get (and keep) the right players
2. Create conditions for them to thrive and team
3. Manage with lean techniques and selective measures

Creating the culture or climate to keep and attract the “stars” is critical but not always easy to find or do. Numerous studies show a 10-time difference in productivity and quality among software developers and teams. Three cultural elements that create space for (and attract) intrinsically motivated development team members of stars:

1. Autonomy
2. Mastery
3. Purpose

Following Jeff, 5 senior engineering execs presented their tips for success. The presentations are provided (when available) below:

- Doug Gaff, Director of Technology, NPR Digital Services
- Lars Jankowfsky, Director of Quality Engineering, Kayak
- Michael Madden, Vice President, Integrated Media Enterprise,Avid Agile and Scrum at Avid presentation
- Tim Wegner, VP of Avance Engineering, Stratus Technologies, Avance Agile Process presentation
- Andi Zink, CTO, Black Duck Software , High Performance Development at Black Duck presentation

Attendees came away with tips on how to break out of the traditional, hiring methods and building a culture, insights into Agile development strategies and the use of open source components to rapidly build out infrastructure, applications and services.
MassTLC is planning additional programming in this area to address the needs of the audience. Watch for upcoming programs on how to build high performance software teams and cultures, and software processes and tools. We would love to hear your ideas and suggestions on software development topics. Please contact christine@masstlc.org.

Cloud-based services with athenahealth

2011-05-04T09:00:00.002-04:00

About 60 people turned out on Tuesday to hear John Lewis, Regional VP of Sales at athenahealth speak about selling cloud-based solutions to health care organizations. Despite some CIO's concerns about privacy, athenahealth has sold its solution to 33,000 providers in 46 states and representing 60 practice specialties.

John attributed the company's success to its ability to simplify the complexity of health care for its customers. At the rapid rate at which health care is now evolving, John reports his company's customers appreciate not having to install a new version of software every time a reporting requirement changes.

The conversation was lively as audience members questions about athenahealth's future plans, the length of the sales cycle, objections they encounter at large hospitals, how the software will interact with HIEs, and CIO's concerns about SLAs. Afterwards, the health care cluster met to discuss a full roster of exciting programs for the rest of the year. Watch for upcoming programs including a panel discussion with George Brenckle, CIO of UMASS Memorial Health Center, and other senior level executives from the Center, on how health care reform has impacted the hospital’s IT initiatives.

MassAdvantage: The economic ecosystem of Massachusetts

2011-04-27T13:12:00.004-04:00

Amid threats of government shutdowns in Washington and ferocious tax and spending debates in state capitols across the country, we have lost sight of the real issue: Economic growth across the country remains mostly flat.

Fortunately, Massachusetts is an outlier, a beacon of hope. That's because our state has an enduring tradition of innovation, dating way back to John Adams and his fellow patriots, who dared to dream that a country of immigrants could be free to determine its destiny. This kind of disruptive thinking is the most important ingredient to our state's long tradition of innovation and invention. We have invented or developed a remarkable string of innovations, including anesthesia, radar, microwave technology, the computer, biotechnology, nanotechnology, email, and, perhaps most notably, the Internet itself.

Read more...

This article, by Vin Bisceglia, MassTLC Trustee and Partner at Genovation Capital, appeared in Mass High Tech, and is part of a 12-part series about the "MassTLC 2020 Challenge" to grow the tech sector by 100,000 jobs over the coming decade.

Museum of Science Robot Block Party

2011-04-16T18:00:00.000-04:00

Robots have invaded! This was no science fiction at the Boston Museum of Science, robots were literally everywhere in the Museum’s Blue Wing. The Mass Technology Leadership Council’s Robotics cluster was proud to work with iRobot and the Museum of Science on their 2011 Robot Bock Party held on April 16th from 10am to 4pm. Museum attendees could drive robots, talk to robots, see what it would be like to operate with surgical robot and even make a robot.

There were over 21 different exhibitors displaying their robots including MassTLC cluster members,
- Artaic Innovative Mosaic
- Boston Engineering
- iRobot
- MIT Lincoln Labs
- PTC
- UMass Lowell
- vGo Communications
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
- WPI

The day also included inspiring talks on how robots can help introduce science and math concepts to our children who will one day grow up to create whole new generations of robots. iRobot employees first talked about their different roles at the company. Dr. Ingolf Tuerk and Dr. Michael Zinaman talked about their experience with the da Vinci surgical robot. Robin Saitz of PTC talked about her experience starting a FIRST team in her local community. LEGO Education’s Andy Bell gave a talk on how robots enhance learning in children by being hands on and connecting to math and science concepts in a concrete way.

There was also a panel talk that included iRobot CEO, Colin Angle; Jon Dudas, President of FIRST; Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab, Robotics; and Catherine Pierce, 13 year old FIRST veteran.

If you are interested in seeing and experiencing robots up close join us at our next Tech Tuesday featuring robotics on May 10th, http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1526841825. A panel discussion will precede Tech Tuesday from 3:30 to 5:30 talking about how Robotics is changing the way companies compete and do business, http://businessofrobotics.eventbrite.com.

Robots to the Rescue: Massachusetts Robots Respond to World Events

2011-04-15T18:00:00.000-04:00

MassTLC members gathered at UK Trade and Investment in Cambridge, MA, to hear how three Massachusetts companies are responding to world events. Tim Trainer, VP of Operations, Government and Industrial Robots of iRobot talked about the company’s role in search and rescue operations after 9-11, evaluating oil plumes in the Gulf of Mexico and most recently sending robots to Japan to assist in moving rubble and surveillance after the earthquake and tsunami hit. iRobot sent four robots in all to Japan including two Packbots, one equipped with a hazmat kit, and two Warriors.

Bob Quinn, VP Talon Operations of Qinetiq-NA, had arrived back in Boston from Japan a day earlier than the talk. He stressed that the situation is far from over and the aftershocks we hear about are bigger than most earthquakes. Bob was part of a team training Japanese workers to use the Talon, Dragon Runner and Autonomous Bobcat robots to move contaminated debris, monitor weather and contamination, and to survey areas of the Fukishima plant that are too small or dangerous for workers to enter. These robots are now in operation at the plant being controlled by workers using Xbox game controllers.

Hydroid CEO, Christopher von Alt, talked about how the REMUS 6000, a deep underwater autonomous vehicle (AUV), aided in finding the wreckage of Air France flight 447 in early April. The REMUS 6000 can dive up to 6000 meters and stay underwater for up to 20 hours. Using sonar the AUV was able to create a detailed forensic map of the ocean floor for searchers to use. Hydroid AUV’s have also been used in clearing the Umm Qasr port during the Iraq war, searching for Amelia Earhart’s wreckage, re-detailing maps of the Titanic and completing autonomous surveys of underwater pipelines after storms.

After the presentations, attendees were invited to try controlling the iRobot Packbot and Warrior robots. Qinetiq also brought along their Talon and Dragon Runner robots. Qinetiq even had one of the Autonomous Bobcats in the UKTI parking lot. Even the UK Consul General, Phil Budden, got in on the fun and drove all the different robots.

Read More:
http://www.qinetiq.com/home/newsroom/news_releases_homepage/2011/1st_quarter/qna_sends_unmanned_systems_to_japan.html

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2011/03/26/bedford_companys_robots_to_help_out_in_japan/?s_campaign=8315

http://www.km.kongsberg.com/ks/web/nokbg0238.nsf/AllWeb/FBAE3A993FC33666C125786F00289474?OpenDocument

Council Chairman Mohamad Ali Named SVP and President of Avaya Global Services

2011-04-04T20:38:00.008-04:00

MassTLC Chairman Mohamad Ali was appointed Senior Vice President and President of Avaya Global Services, reporting to Kevin J. Kennedy, President and CEO of Avaya, a global leader in business communications and collaboration.

Ali’s rise within Avaya mirror's his growing prominence in the tech community and strengthens his leadership mandate with MassTLC's 2020 Challenge to grow the tech sector by 100K jobs over the coming decade.

Ali, a member of Avaya's Executive Committee and formerly SVP of the Corporate Development and Strategy group, assumes leadership of Avaya's global services businesses. In this role, he will be responsible for all aspects of Avaya's customer support and maintenance, managed services and hosted services businesses.

Since joining Avaya nearly two years ago, Ali has been instrumental in guiding the company's acquisitions and divestitures, establishing and expanding key business partner relationships and introducing an enhanced level of innovation to the marketplace through management of Avaya's research labs and emerging products business unit. Ali brings significant prior experience to the role, having managed businesses in hardware, software and services, primarily at IBM.

Brett Shockley has been promoted into Ali's former role, where he will oversee Avaya's corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, all major strategic relationships, research labs and emerging products. "Mohamad and Brett are both proven business leaders who will be instrumental in supporting the next phase of innovation and growth for Avaya," Kennedy said. "Their experience and expertise will help us capture the exciting growth potential in today's business collaboration market."

View full press release.

MassTLC Joins MassEcon in Welcoming 13 New Companies to Massachusetts

2011-03-31T22:16:00.007-04:00

MassTLC joined MassEcon in welcoming thirteen companies to the state at a Corporate Welcome Reception at Citizens Bank. The event was attended by 160+ executives and featured remarks from Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki, as well as Citizens Bank President Jerry Sargent.

The thirteen companies welcomed as new additions to the Commonwealth's business landscape include Alliance Medical Gas Corporation of Springfield, Altaeros Energies of Cambridge, Backupify of Cambridge, Evaluate Pharmaceuticals of Boston, HitPoint Studios of Hatfield, IntegraGen, Inc. of Cambridge, Mobile Monitor Technologies of Newton, Moms and Jobs of Lowell, Nemucore Medical Innovations of Worcester, Sand9 of Cambridge, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals of Marlborough, TPI Composites of Fall River, and Xenics USA of Beverly. The companies hailed from all regions of the state and represent a wide variety of industries including renewable energy, biotechnology, information technology, and photonics.

According to Sargent, "Convening events like this and serving as a resource to new companies is a simple way to support the economic development efforts of the state." As part of the MassTLC 2020 Challenge to grow the tech sector by 100K jobs over the coming decade, the Council supports MassEconn's Ambassadors Program to organize a network of senior executives who share a common interest in enhancing the state's ability to retain and attract business.

MassTLC executives interested in being an Ambassador are invited to contact Council CEO Tom Hopcroft at tom@masstlc.org or Susan Houston, Executive Director of MassEcon.

Innovation, Technology and Sustainable Design

2011-03-30T08:46:00.015-04:00

The MassTLC Energy cluster hosted a panel of experts discussing how technology can play a role in the lifecycle of new and existing buildings. Mark Nelson, Deputy Commissioner, Office of Facility Maintenance, DCAM discussed how today’s buildings must go beyond LEED certification and be maintained as a sustainable facility. As Mark put it, “It’s about getting the right data for your return on investment.” He also stressed that the person maintaining the building may not have the skills to run the building the way it was designed to run, that is where new smart technologies can help.

Ellen Watts, a principal with Architerra, described how over 60 Massachusetts towns voluntarily adopted the state’s “stretch code” to reduce the energy load of new construction, yet energy use in the US is still rising. Buildings play a large role in energy use and by integrating new technologies like solar panels, efficient lighting, and on-site fuel cells or biomass boilers architects can help builders get to a net-zero energy load.

Once the structure is designed and built, the next phase in the lifecycle becomes maintenance and this is where Johnson Controls (JCI) and Cisco come in. Brendon Buckley, North American NIS Solutions Director at JCI and Risk Esker, Director, Emerging Solutions Ecosystems at Cisco are leveraging data and technology to control the building. The challenge for them is pulling the data out of long established silos and bringing together different stake holders such as IT and facilities managers.

Brian Chemel, Founder and CTO, Digital Lumens is on the ground solving energy problems in new and existing buildings. Lighting dominates the energy usage in buildings and Digital Lumens’ technology brings together lighting clusters, network sensing and web based management to reduce energy.

The event ended with the panelists discussing what the next challenges are and what more can be done. Mark Nelson believes training for facilities managers who will be in charge of maintaining the buildings LEED certifications is important. Ellen Watts feels that more federal leadership is needed to tackle the issue of rising energy usage. Brendon Buckley wants to help educate customers on the return on investment in building management technologies. Finally, Brian Chemel stated that to promote real change government and business incentives need to be aligned.

CNET’s Green Tech Blog writer, Martin LaMonica, attended the event. You can find his article at, http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20049680-54.html.

Smart Connected Communities, Rick Esker

Leveraging Convergence to Achieve Smarter Buildings, Brendan Buckley
Innovation, Technology & Sustainable Design:An Owner’s Perspective, Mark Nelson

MassTLC 2020 Challenge: Create 100K "new tech" jobs!

2011-03-16T13:06:00.002-04:00

Jobs. They drive our economy. They enable us to put food on the table, heat our homes and send our kids to college. But today, we have more people out of work than at any time since 1993. And when those lost jobs come back, they will be different; the skills we have today will not be right for the new jobs. So what can our community do to catalyze job creation and ensure we have the skills to fill these jobs?

At the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC), we have some thoughts we would like to share with you through 12 articles throughout the coming year. It's an effort to galvanize the Massachusetts IT sector around a common mission: the creation of 100,000 new IT jobs, plus an additional 163,000 related non-IT jobs, over the next 10 years. This would generate over $16 billion of income for Massachusetts' residents.

Read more...

This article, by Mohamad Ali, Mass Technology Leadership Council Chairman and senior vice president of of corporate development and strategy at Avaya Inc., and Tom Hopcroft, MassTLC president and CEO, appeared in Mass High Tech, and is part of a 12-part series about the "MassTLC 2020 Challenge" to grow the tech sector by 100,000 jobs over the coming decade.

MassTLC Robotics Cluster at Segway in Bedford, NH

2011-03-15T08:31:00.000-04:00

On a cold march morning members of the MassTLC Robotics Cluster met at Segway in Bedford, NH. The group was able to tour the facility which includes engineering and manufacturing, as well as, get a demonstration of the Segway product line. This included the P.U.M.A., a balancing two-wheeled, two person electric vehicle that can accelerate up to 30 mph. Our cluster chair Tom Ryden can be seen here receiving a ride from Segway’s Craig Schafer.

Linking the UK-MA Innovation Economies

2011-03-14T16:00:00.003-04:00

MassTLC President & CEO Tom Hopcroft is interviewed in London on efforts to build business linkages between the UK and Massachusetts technology communities. Thanks to UKTI for the video interviews from the trip.

UKTI writes, "Following a meeting with US Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald in Boston in February, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick traveled to London and Cambridge, England from 14-17 March with a coalition of the state's leading business executives and senior state officials to develop further links between UK and Massachusetts industries including technology, life sciences and clean energy." Read full reacap on UKTI's blog.

1,200 Jam Microsoft NERD for 2nd Annual PAX Party

2011-03-11T17:00:00.005-05:00

MassTLC hosted its second annual "Made in Mass" party in advance of this year's PAX East Conference. Video compliments of Microsoft.

Council CEO Previews Governor's Trip to United Kingdom on NECN

2011-03-09T21:47:00.017-05:00

MassTLC President & CEO Tom Hopcroft is interviewed on NECN on his participation in the UK leg of Governor Deval Patrick's Innovation Economy Mission. View full NECN interview.

Hopcroft will join Governor Deval Patrick and a coalition of state officials and business leaders on the Massachusetts Innovation Economy Partnership Mission 2011 to the United Kingdom on March 14th. The UK mission is part of a larger effort by Governor Patrick to expand economic opportunities overseas and to bring global companies here. The initiative kicked off with a delegation of Massachusetts technology and other leaders traveling to Israel, which MassTLC helped organize.

"We applaud the Governor for taking the initiative to boost our state's technology industry by embarking on these trade missions," said Hopcroft. "MassTLC is leading an aggressive effort to create 100,000 new technology jobs in the state this decade and the Governor’s commitment to bringing global companies to Massachusetts and opening doors for Massachusetts companies overseas is critical to realizing that aspiration."

Last year, MassTLC unveiled its "2020 Challenge," an initiative that aims to create 100,000 new information technology jobs in the Commonwealth by the end of the decade. During the trip, Hopcroft and eight MassTLC member company executives will join the Governor and other participants in making company visits, meeting with government and business officials, and participating in roundtable discussions with economic leaders in London and Cambridge.

"I’m excited to have Tom Hopcroft and all the MassTLC executives joining our great coalition of leaders on this trade mission," said Governor Patrick. "The Council is leading an ambitious effort to grow the state’s information technology industry and its participation in this mission will go a long way towards forging lasting economic ties and partnerships between Massachusetts, Israel and the UK."

The Massachusetts delegation will arrive in Israel on March 7th, and depart the United Kingdom on March 17th to return to Boston.

Today there are nearly 100 companies with Israeli founders or Israeli-licensed technologies in Massachusetts. In 2009, these companies employed nearly 6,000 people and generated $2.4 billion in direct revenue for the state. Local firms exported over $180 million worth of goods to Israel in 2009 and, at 12.35 percent, the United States is Israel's largest source of imports.

There are currently 478 companies with UK ties in Massachusetts and 225 UK-owned companies have facilities in the state, employing some 40,100 Massachusetts residents. Additionally, 253 Commonwealth-based companies have established operations in the UK. Massachusetts companies exported over $4 billion worth of goods to the UK in 2009 and the United States is the UK's second largest source of imports at 9.74 percent. For two years in a row, the UK has been the largest market for Massachusetts exports.

Starting March 7, 2011, please visit

Channeling the Big Data Tsunami: Opportunities from Infrastructure to Applications

2011-02-22T11:37:00.045-05:00

Keynote speaker, David Reinsel, Group Vice President at IDC set the stage for discussion (view David's slides) at the Channeling the Big Data Tsunami Summit on February 17th. Presenters addressed questions such as how can we handle the onslaught of waves of data hitting our servers and crashing our systems and how can we develop deeper insights and more profitable businesses?

Over 150 attendees learned about the new opportunities and challenges that big data and analytics provide. They heard from successful data-driven businesses and heard presentations on how to plan for the impact on their organization's infrastructure and personnel.

Top analysts and thought leaders discussed the state of big data, business leaders presented infrastructure solutions in data capture, management, analytics, visualization and storage and CEO's shared experiences in healthcare, mobile advertising and financial services.

The event closed with Rapid Pitch Presentations from Suresh Gopalan, Founder and President of ReSurfX, David Kedmey, Co-Founder and President of EidoSearch and Nick Lim, CEO of Sonamine.

Read More:The Data is Coming! The Data is Coming! by Lawrence Schwartz in TokuView
View Video Interviews on SiliconAngle.tv
Presenters included:
- David Reinsel, Group VP Storage, Semiconductors & Pricing, IDC - View David's Presentation Slides
- Paul Brown, Chief Architect, Paradigm4 & SciDB
- Rock Gnatovich, Senior Vice President/COO, TIBCO Spotfire
- Suresh Gopalan, Founder & President, ReSurfX
- Colin Hill, CEO, President, Co-Founder, GNS Healthcare/Via Science
- Kipp Jones, Chief Architect, Skyhook Wireless
- David Kedmey, Co-Founder and President, EidoSearch
- Nick Lim, CEO, Sonamine
- Luke Lonergan, VP & CTO Data Computing Products Division, EMC & co-founder Greenplum
- Rajesh Nair, CTO, DegreeC
- Mike Stonebraker, Professor, MIT
- Adam Towvim, Senior Director, Business Development, Jumptap
- Bob Zurek, VP, Product Strategy, Endeca

David Vellente of Wikibon conducted interviews with Thomas Hopcroft, CEO of MassTLC, David Reinsel, Group VP of IDC, Professor Mike Stonebraker of MIT, Luke Lonergan, CTO of EMC Greenplum and John Partridge, CEO of Tokutek.

Keynote PPT slides coming soon.

Mass Technology Leaders Join Governor Patrick on Innovation Economy Mission to Israel and the UK

2011-02-11T16:06:00.004-05:00

(Photo credit: Matt Bennett/Governor's Office).

A coalition of the state's leading business executives and senior government officials will take part in the Massachusetts Innovation Economy Partnership Mission 2011 to Israel and the United Kingdom. The coalition will explore growth opportunities within the Commonwealth's innovation-based industries and areas of common interest between the state's established and emerging partners in Israel and the UK.

The mission will focus on business expansion, job growth and collaboration during industry forums, company visits and meetings with Israeli and UK business leaders and government officials in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, London and Cambridge. The Massachusetts delegation will arrive in Israel on March 7th, and depart the United Kingdom on March 17th to return to Boston.

"Massachusetts is an unparalleled leader in the global economy and a trailblazer for the nation. To continue to compete on an international level and create new jobs here at home we must look outward to new markets, and position Massachusetts as the North American destination for business growth," said Governor Patrick.

Today there are nearly 100 companies with Israeli founders or Israeli-licensed technologies in Massachusetts. In 2009, these companies employed nearly 6,000 people and generated $2.4 billion in direct revenue for the state. Local firms exported over $180 million worth of goods to Israel in 2009 and, at 12.35 percent, the United States is Israel's largest source of imports.

There are currently 478 companies with UK-ties in Massachusetts. Of these, 225 UK-owned companies in the state employ 40,100 Massachusetts residents. Additionally, 253 Commonwealth-based companies have established operations in the UK. Massachusetts companies exported over $4 billion worth of goods to the UK in 2009 and the United States is the UK's second largest source of imports at 9.74 percent. For two years in a row, the UK has been the largest market for Massachusetts exports.

Like Massachusetts, both countries boast thriving technology sectors and the opportunities for collaboration and investment are significant. The UK's Information Communication Technologies sector is the largest in Europe, and employs over a million people.

Over the last two years governors and top officials from 21 states have led trade missions to Israel and the United Kingdom, a clear indication that our counterparts consider these efforts to be wise investments for their businesses and citizens.

Council President & CEO Tom Hopcroft and the following executives from MassTLC member companies will be participating in the business delegation: Jaime Goldstein, Partner, Northbridge Venture Partners; Gary Gottlieb, President & CEO, Partners HealthCare; Michael Greeley, General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners; Brian Halligan, CEO & Founder, HubSpot; Tom Heiser, President, RSA, Security Division of EMC; Diane Hessan, CEO, Communispace; Andy Ory, CEO, Acme Packet; Steve Papa, CEO, Endeca; and Dr. Ido Shoenberg, MD, Chairman & CEO, American Well.

Read full press release.

Building a Community of the Right Followers

2011-02-10T14:48:00.009-05:00

Alan Belniak, director of social media at PTC and new co-chair of MassTLC's social media cluster, hosted the social media cluster for a discussion on "Creating a Large Community of the Right Followers" on Thursday, February 10th to discuss building a community of the right followers. Christopher Penn, VP of Strategy and Innovation at Blue Sky Factory, as well as co-host of the Marketing Over Coffee weekly marketing podcast, gave a terrific presentation on how to curate a good network or community of the right followers for your business.

A few key takeaways are below and definitely take a look at Christopher's community building flow chart on how to build and maintain a community. Great stuff!

1. Getting started -- have an initial seed group of people -- find people that are influential in their own right and encourage them to join and participate

2. Everything you know about sales and marketing can be used to create a community -- start with outbound -- good old fashioned email to invite them to the community. Then of course, the social mechanism needs to be built in.

3. Invite people like crazy- email, social sharing. Do something within the social network to feed them, provide them content

4. Valuable content is more difficult to create than you think -- a good rule of thumb, if you didn't learn something, it isn't valuable.

5. Provide some type of exclusivity -- it is tough to resist being in the club. You don't want to share everything. One method is you can see all content but to comment, you have to be a member.

6. Authority -- be the authority in something!

7. Be careful with using a public platform to create your community (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc), they can easily be taken away from you. Transition them if possible to your private community but use incentives (not necessarily monetary) to do so and expect that you are going to lose a good percentage in the transition.

Watch for upcoming social media seminars focused on integrating social media tools to meet your business goals.

Sales Compensation for a SaaS Business

2011-02-03T21:57:00.005-05:00

MassTLC SaaS members braved another New England storm for a lively discussion on sales compensation in a SaaS environment led by Liz Cobb, sales compensation consultant, and Brad Coffey, Director of Business Operations and Strategy, at HubSpot. Highlights are below and the presentation can be accessed via slideshare here.

Discussion topics included sales compensation basics:

1. Compensation follows the strategy
- Know your goals - Revenue, growth, profit
- Understand your company stage - Startup, repeatable growth, maturity
- Design your sales strategy - Organization design and job roles; Consider other job roles - not just your outside sales folks

2. Reps follow the money
- Does your plan communicate the strategy?
- Motivate what can be controlled by the rep
- Provide frequent feedback- $ & #s

3. Creating a comp plan

Liz highlighted that payout timing is critical - align it as closely as possible to the motivating event. The key events for motivating: make sure reps have control of the event, make the compensation competitive, communication the plan clearly, reward in a timely fashion and provide real-time visibility to results and how payments were determined. Also, be sure to view compensation across job roles so you can check for fairness and alignment - from the sales manager to sales rep to service. And lastly, make sure managers are aligned with the team quota.

Once the plan is out there, it is important to assess the plan and make sure it is motivating. Two tell-all graphs include:

1. Pay for performance - tight alignment

2. Attainment Distribution - how to set quotas and monitor, look for a nice bell curve

You want a team of winners - 60-65% of group should be at or above quota

There was a quick look at organizations that sell both SaaS and on-premise products. Be sure to confirm your strategy as a company and avoid having the same person selling both!

Brad followed Liz by offering considerations from the real world. One of the most important lessons HubSpot learned was they had to shift their model to pay on predicted LTV more than MRR. This worked for awhile however LTV calculations are unclear and often a lagging indicator. Over time they have shifted their model in an attempt to schedule longer term contracts, extended clawback deal up to 6 months.

Hubspot lessons learned:

- Align sales compensation with the needs of the biz
- This will change over time
- This includes churn and LTV
- Analyze each rep like a thin version of the your entire company
- Leverage SaaS benchmarks to ensure you're on track - then hit the gas!

Stay tuned for information on a series of breakfast seminars from the group focused on running an efficient SaaS business model. If you wish to be further involved in the planning of upcoming sessions, please contact Christine Nolan at christine@masstlc.org. Thanks to all who attended and joined in the discussion!