Nashville Technology Council

Nashville Tech Story (4/13/10)

Local Tech Community Partners with High Schools

FirstCamp Nashville will be held on Friday, April 23, 2010 from 9:00AM – 1:00 PM at the Martin Center.  The event is free and open to high school students in the Middle Tennessee area who are interested in technology.  

FirstCamp Nashville is an education “unconference” designed to engage high school students with the technology community by allowing them to present and discuss their ideas. In addition, we will bring thought leaders from the community to help guide and develop their ideas. Nashville has long been a leader in providing BarCamp and PodCamp.  

“Since May of 2009, we have worked with industry and educational leaders to create transformational strategies in Information Technology and Data at MNPS.” said John Williams, Vice President, Technology, Metro Nashville Public Schools.  “On April 23, we will deliver on another of these strategies: to make students partners in technology in the classroom.”

Friday, April 23, 2010
9:00 AM – 1:00 AM
Martin Center
2400 Fairfax Avenue
Nashville, TN 37212
Phone: 298-8456

Open to all high school students in the Middle Tennessee region.  To register, please visit http://www.firstcamp.net.

There will be four tracks for high schools students to present their ideas:
1. Video/Gaming
2. Mobile/Application Development
3. Social Media/Location Based Services
4. Stand Up/Impromptu Discussion

“Nashville is in a unique position to capitalize on several macro economic trends including entrepreneurialism, an outstanding university system, the need for innovation, and a favorable local business environment.” said J. Tod Fetherling, President/CEO for the Nashville Technology Council.  “This in turn creates an opportunity for the technology industry, but we must have an active and engaged pipeline of high school students and college graduates to achieve our long term goals.”

Volunteers for the event include MNPS, Nashville State Community College, Tennessee State University, Deloitte, Nashville Technology Council, Digital Nashville, and others.

All proceeds from the event will go to the Technology Scholarship Fund as part of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.

Nashville Tech Story (11/23/09)

[meta]marketer’s Kate O’Neill led the audience through key points to a strategic social media plan last week, as she introduced the group to a number of tools including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.  As the workshop began, the audience emphasized their need for understanding Social Media as a business promoter, the safety and privacy of these tools, and the proper etiquette for the use of these tools.

Kate began the workshop by emphasizing the importance of adapting to this form of marketing, and embracing these tools as the “new normal.”  An interesting statistic she pointed out is that Facebook is beginning to encroach Google in quantity of web traffic, and very soon might surpass it completely.  Another interesting point, thanks to @Bazaarvoice, is that 64% of consumers connected to brands on social media made their first purchase from that brand due to a digital experience.  This really laid down the ground rules of the importance of getting to know and understand this type of marketing.

Although it is extremely tempting just to dive in and start using these tools, Kate illustrated the importance of creating a strategy for your marketing efforts.  You should ask yourself:
-Who are you trying to reach?
-Who are the audiences you are trying to connect?
-What channel is appropriate to communicate with your audience?  
-What are the key concepts that you want to get across?
-What are the key terms you would use to describe that concept?  
-Who are your content contributors?

After defining your strategy, it is important to participate, but in the proper way.  So, what is the etiquette for Social Media use?  Kate referred to this as, “Think of it like a cocktail party…. light and interesting.”  She also emphasized the importance of not only talking about what you think is interesting, but make sure it will be interesting to your target audience as well.  In addition, she stated that it is essential to think about everything and make sure it is always back on a strategic level.

If you missed Kate’ presentation, and want to find out more, take a look at her slideshow below:

The Nashville Tech Story (October 1, 2009)

The Nashville Startup Weekend crew hosted a pitch camp last night. The pitch camp listened to more than 20 different pitches and helped the budding entrepreneurs hone their pitch skills.  In addition, the audience gathered at Owen Graduate School at Vanderbilt, was able to get more information about the weekend.

For $40, participants get to work within teams to start a business over the weekend, which includes food and drinks over the weekend.

Joe Kustelski, the product manager for the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, not only provided feedback as a guest panelist, but pitched his own ideas as well.  Chris Ennis joined the pitch session via Skype.  The whole event was viewable live on UStream.com.

Nashville Startup Weekend is October 9-11, 2009, with Pitching beginning at 5:30 pm.  Everyone will have one minute to pitch their ideas.  Then the participants will select the top 8-10 ideas and begin forming companies and working immediately.  On Sunday afternoon, the companies will pitch their company to participants and selected capital players.

Register Now!

Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

This week we challenged ourselves to find and profile a new tool.  Although we came across this tool some time ago, we were re-introduced to it this week at a member meeting.  Google Latitude allows you to track on a map your family and friends location real-time.  It does this via GPS and triangulation in the mobile phone.  You can use on Blackberry, Iphone, or Androids.  It is very cool.

Like most social networking tools, it is opt in only.  No need to worry about creepy stalkers, you can control who has access to your profile.  Time to change your attitude about your latitude.

Click here to check it out.

To learn more about these tools, please join us for TechNashville next Thursday.