Nashville Technology Council

Music Council partners with Entrepreneur Center; Join Technology Council at 105 Broadway

Mayor Karl Dean and the Nashville Music Council have formalized an agreement with the newly launched Nashville Entrepreneur Center. This powerful partnership between the Music Council and the NEC will provide unprecedented direct support to local start-ups in digital media and entertainment —taking ideas in their infancy to robust reality.

The 50+ member strong Nashville Music Council, dedicated to cultivating and advancing the ever expanding local music community, together with Mayor Karl Dean have formalized an agreement to work in tandem with Nashville Entrepreneur Center to further nurture and support business ideas with the potential to impact the digital media & music entertainment sector.

To begin, the NEC will hold events for the Music Council. These programs will feature business plan presentations and will enable entrepreneurs to have executive level interaction and feedback. This initiative will have positive impact in both directions—providing productive feedback from industry veterans to the protégées and giving the Music Council access to potentially successful innovation within the industry.

Launched officially in the summer of 2010 with support from private and public funding, and led by Vanderbilt faculty member and accomplished business leader Michael Burcham, Nashville’s Entrepreneur Center is an incubator for ideas and business start-ups targeting four distinct areas for local growth: Healthcare, Technology, Social Enterprise and Digital Media & Entertainment. With over 8,000 square feet of physical space and a staff of successful industry leaders, NEC is the “front door” for new entrepreneurs helping them to navigate the available options and resources. Vetting
hundreds of local business plans at various stages of development, the NEC mentors and provides office space. To a select few, the NEC pairs entrepreneurs with those who can offer term sheets and funding.

Additionally the NEC will sponsor a formal mentoring program for the Music Council that will pair an industry leader with a start-up(s) venture. Each mentor will participate in a comprehensive training program and then will be paired with protégées who possess significant potential. ASCAP president Tim DuBois and former Chairman of Sony Music Nashville Joe Galante have been elected to kick-off the official mentor program Mayor Karl Dean applauds the partnership and adds perspective, “Cities seeking to grow and prosper in the 21st century have to support innovation and entrepreneurism in key industries. The music industry in particular is ripe for new ideas and new business models that will help shape its transition into the digital age. This partnership between the Music Council and the Nashville Entrepreneur Center will help ensure that the future leader and leading ideas of the music industry are being cultivated right here in Nashville.”

On behalf of the Music Council members MaryAnn McCready adds, “The music and entertainment industry is an entrepreneurial business. It makes complete sense for the Music Council to support its local entrepreneurs and the EC is a great vehicle for doing this.”

Michael Burcham, President of the Entrepreneur Center concurs, “We are delighted to announce this partnership with the Music Council. Nashville has a rich history of innovation and leadership in the Music Industry. We look forward to working with the Music Council to help nurture and grow the next generation of music entrepreneurs.”

With number porting available for a limited time on Google Voice, this should really open up this service to the masses.

“We’re continually testing new features to enhance the user experience. For a limited amount of time, we’re making the Google Voice number porting process available to users. We don’t have any additional details to share at this time, but plan to offer this feature to all users in the near future.”

The costs will be $20.  http://www.google.com/voice

Recognized as a leader in performance improvement for 25 years, Press Ganey partners with more than 10,000 health care organizations to create and sustain high-performing organizations, and, ultimately, improve the overall health care experience. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of solutions to help clients operate efficiently, improve quality, increase market share and optimize reimbursement. Press Ganey works with clients from across the continuum of care – hospitals, medical practices, home health agencies and other providers – including 50% of all U.S. hospitals.

Big news out of Nashville today on the tech scene.  At our annual Membership Meeting, we hosted Mike Svinte, VP of IBM’s Smarter Cities and Healthcare and Alex Gounares, CTO for AOL who was a substitute for AOL CEO Tim Armstrong (ice issues in New York City this morning).  Mike provided a great overview of innovation and what he believes will be the core issues facing us in the next decade.  Alex shared insight of AOL’s strategy on the media front, including a call for Python programmers for StudioNow.  AOL is building an engineering center here in Nashville based around video technologies on Music Row.

While a majority of Nashville’s technology leadership were being educated at Trevecca today, Rockhouse Partners was sold to Etix.  PureSafety acquired Occupational Health Research out of Maine.  Bridgestone and Brookdale were both in the news on different fronts.  It feels pretty good to be in technology and in Nashville.

TIM ARMSTRONG OF AOL AND MIKE SVINTE OF IBM ADDRESS NASHVILLE TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL

NASHVILLE – The Nashville Technology Council presents its annual Membership Meeting “Smarter Planet, Smarter You” on Tuesday, January 18, on the campus of Trevecca Nazarene University. Addressing this year’s membership meeting will be opening speaker Mike Svinte, Vice President of Smarter Cities and Healthcare for IBM, and keynote speaker Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL.

This members only event is sold out.  For more information, visit http://www.technologycouncil.com/

What: 2011 Nashville Technology Council Membership Meeting: Smarter Planet, Smarter You

When: Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Who: Tim Armstrong, CEO and Chairman, AOL and Mike Svinte, Vice President of Smarter Cities and Healthcare, IBM

Where: Trevecca University, Boone Business Building

333 Murfreesboro Road
Nashville, TN 37210-2877

Once again, our annual Membership Meeting is SOLD OUT!  Miss out on getting your ticket?  Be sure to keep up with the event via our Twitter. The official event hashtag is #nashtech11.

Thank you to our Sustainable Sponsor Avaya, our Solar Sponsors IBM and Trevecca MBA IT, and our Event Sponsors Bradley Arant Boult Cummings and tekentex for their support of our 2011 kick-off event!

Verizon Wireless and Apple today announced that the iPhone 4 will be available on the Verizon Wireless network beginning on Thursday, February 10.  Qualified Verizon Wireless customers will be given the exclusive opportunity to pre-order iPhone 4 online on February 3, ahead of general availability. iPhone 4 is the most innovative phone in the world, featuring Apple’s stunning Retina display, the highest resolution display ever built into a phone resulting in super crisp text, images and video, and FaceTime, for  video calling.  iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless will also include new Personal Hotspot capabilities allowing customers to use iPhone 4 to connect up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices.

“We are pleased to introduce millions of wireless users to the industry leading iPhone 4 on the nation’s most reliable network,” said Lowell McAdam, president and chief operating officer of Verizon.  “This is an important step for the industry as two great companies join forces to give wireless customers one of the most important technological additions to the mobile landscape this century.”

“Verizon Wireless customers have told us they can’t wait to get their hands on iPhone 4, and we think they are going to love it,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer.  “We have enormous respect for the company that the Verizon team have built and the loyalty they have earned from their customers.”

iPhone 4 features a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, HD video recording, and more interactive elements.

Apple’s A4 chip, a 3-axis gyro and a beautiful glass and stainless steel design like no other mobile phone. iPhone 4 also comes with iOS 4 the world’s most advanced mobile operating system which includes multitasking, folders, Game Center, AirPlay and AirPrint wireless printing.  iPhone 4 customers have access to the world’s most popular App Store with more than 300,000 apps available in an incredible range of 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health and reference.

Pricing & AvailabilityiPhone 4 will be available on the Verizon Wireless network beginning Thursday, February 10 for a suggested retail price of $199.99 for the 16GB model and $299.99 for the 32GB model with a new two year customer agreement. iPhone 4 will be available at more than 2,000 Verizon Wireless Communications Stores nationwide, online at  www.verizonwireless.com/iphone, at select retail partners, at Apple retail stores, at the Apple Store (www.apple.com), at Apple Authorized Resellers, and by calling 1-800-2 JOIN IN.

About Verizon
WirelessVerizon Wireless operates the nation’s most reliable and largest wireless voice and 3G data network, serving more than 93 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 79,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) and Vodafone (LSE, NASDAQ: VOD). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com.

About Apple
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

We want to spread the good word about our friends at Jumpstart Foundry and their brand new skill-building education series for the entrepreneurial minds of Nashville.  Jumpstart Fundamentals, a program offered in conjunction with Washington-DC based Jumpstart Lab, will focus on giving the startup and tech set the web application building skills they need to get their businesses off the ground and stay competitive. The first offering is “Startup on Rails” beginning on February 13th, and will focus on the fundamentals of Ruby on Rails through in-person and online education. Two tracks are available, one for the novice user and another “express” track for users with a higher level experience with Ruby and/or other programming languages.

This is a unique opportunity to get some of the best training from Ruby experts right here at our home on 105 Broadway. You can read the full press release here.  To learn more about this course offering and to register, visit jumpstartlab.com/courses/startup.

The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency has increased its activation level and called in additional staff to monitor the winter storm anticipated across much of Tennessee. Update 6:30 p.m.: TEMA’s activation level was moved to level 3 and the state is under a declared state of emergency. Click here for more information.

Interstates still have snow on them.  Road should be improving throughout the day.  Additional snow is expected tonight.

Last night you may have caught Scott Gordon of Vaco Technology speaking with Channel 2 about Nashville’s thriving technology job market.  In conjunction with Vaco, we compiled the latest report on exactly how many IT related jobs are open in the Middle Tennessee area, the most popular open positions and what companies are hiring.  Currently our local job market has 1,065 IT jobs to fill.  As Scott confirmed in his interview last night, Nashville is hiring!

Our official press release is below and you can read the full Q4 jobs report here.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: J. Tod Fetherling                     
Phone: 615-873-1284
Email: tfetherling@technologycouncil.com
Website: www.technologycouncil.com

NASHVILLE: OPEN POSITIONS CONTINUE TO RISE
Q4 Jobs Report Reveals 1,065 Technology Job Openings in Middle Tennessee

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – January 7, 2011 – The Nashville Technology Council today announced the release of its Q4 2010 Technology Hiring Trends Report.  In partnership with Vaco Technology, the report was created to provide insights into the needs of the Middle Tennessee’s technology job sector and show the growth of what has become a pivotal portion of the local and regional economy.

Research concludes that over 1,065 technology related jobs are available in the Middle Tennessee area.  The report was generated from public job postings from large job portals (i.e. CareerBuilder, Monster, etc.), specialty technology sites (i.e. Dice), and local employer sites.  The total number of open positions was up 19% from Q3 results in Middle Tennessee.

The results confirm one important thing: Nashville is hiring.  “Vaco continues to see increased demand for IT talent across our client base,” said Jerry Bostelman, CEO of Vaco.  “Progressive companies from start-ups to industry leaders realize their technological competitive edge is dependent on fielding the strongest team and are investing accordingly.”

The highest number of openings came from enterprise health care technology companies: Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Community Health Systems (CHS), Vanderbilt and Vision Consulting. Core industries that are offering the majority of technical jobs in Middle Tennessee are government, healthcare, startups, and professional services.

The most prevalent technology position title advertised this quarter is Developer.  Analyst positions were down slightly, but management positions experienced an increase. In addition to job openings, the report also illustrates programming languages that are required in the today’s tech industry.  .Net, and Java are still in highest demand for potential employees in the Middle Tennessee area, with SQL positions being a close third.  Open Source technologies fall just behind these skill sets.

J.Tod Fetherling, President and CEO of Nashville Technology Council, commented, “Local efforts are beginning to pay dividends as we increase the total number of tech students in college and high school and re-train displaced workers from other industries.”

To view the full report, click here.

About the Nashville Technology Council

The Nashville Technology Council is an exclusive, 501 (c)(6) professional membership based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the Middle Tennessee technology community succeed.  Created in 1999 as an affiliate of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Technology Council represents, promotes and supports over 400 organizations through events and conferences, professional and student education initiatives, specialized economic development projects, technology job resources and growth projects and other community resources. Membership is open to technology companies, technology employers, service providers, educational institutions, and non-profit companies interested in supporting the growth of technology businesses in Middle Tennessee. For more information, visit www.technologycouncil.com