My Day at the Williamson County Career Fair
By Mollie McCormick

I’m going to be honest—when I woke up yesterday morning, I was a little less than excited to be spending my afternoon at the Williamson County Career
Fair, handing out flyers on information that I didn’t think these kids would care one bit about.  I had too many emails and too many tasks that needed to
be done.  But fast forward to 3 hours later when I left the building with a big smile on my face, a sense of new motivation, and grateful for a job that
allows me to be around, and potentially influence the minds of our young, future leaders.

I met kid after kid that didn’t associate graphic or web design with the technology industry, or had no idea that they could, in fact, be the ones creating the next Angry Birds or Kinect.  They just simply didn’t know it was an option.  My answer?  I handed them a techville.us map (ok, ok kids love posters…I get it!) and told them to study those companies, because there is a good chance you may work for, or even lead, one of them someday.  Plus, you get to wear jeans more often than not in this field.

So let’s change the way these kids think about their future.  Everything uses technology and the more we are able to transform our approach on that and show how it infiltrates our world, maybe we can get these kids excited about a career in this ever-changing field.  It’s certainly never boring.  All in favor, say “technology.”

The Nashville Post Tech 25 issue features some of the most innovative technology companies in Nashville.
They take a look at who is breaking in to new markets, which companies are creating new products and
who is leading the technology charge.

The Nashville Post Tech 25 are as follows (NTC members are shown in red):

American Hometown Media

Belmont Software Services

Capital Confirmation

Consensus Point

Cybera

Document Solutions

Edo Interactive

Emdeon

eMids

Emma

Griffin Technology

HCA Information Technology & Services

Healthcare Management Systems

HealthStream

Informatics Corp. of America

InQuicker

Metova

MissionPoint Health Partners

MyWerx

OnFocus Health Care

PureSafety

Qualifacts

Shareable Ink

Splother

Vextec

We at the Nashville Technology Council already know how much local talent we have. Our members consist of Middle
Tennessee’sbest technology companies, leaders and innovators. We thank you all for being members and helping
our community succeed.

We are looking forward to this holiday season and are excited for the new year ahead. We hope you will help us
encourage others to join the Nashville Technology Council to help us continue to grow. Our Council –
members, staff, and board – provide a common voice for technology trends, issues, and opportunities in our region,
state, and nation.

Through our collective efforts, we can positively influence and impact tech-related initiatives, attract tech-oriented
businesses to our city, and grow technology jobs. The NTC is one voice for technology.

Over the years, we’ve had amazing events and speakers like Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, U.S. Congressman, Marsha Blackburn, Jeff Hayzlett (CMO,Eastman Kodak Company) and Alex Gounares (CTO of AOL). We are also fortunate to have so much talent supporting our mission… just look at the line up for events like Naked Hospital and InfoSec.

We’ve been thrilled with the active participation of our members and the technology community here in Nashville. As we move forward we will continue to address new tech innovations, foster entrepreneurship in the field of technology, promote employment in the technology sector , and most importantly, keep promoting technology in our region. We are proud to be part of the Nashville tech community and we look forward to many more years.

http://mashable.com/2011/08/10/students-technology-infographic/

Encourage or overcome? Tell us what you think!

As you  know, the NTC just launched NashHire which has been gaining momentum.  We hope this is one way to start getting the word out to a broad audience that “Nashville is Hiring”.

“It’s so exciting to hear about all of the technology jobs moving to Nashville,” said Tori Lennon,  Manager, National Talent Acquisition for Healthways.  “One of the ways to meet this demand will be through stronger partnerships with colleges and universities across the country.  It’s going to be more important than ever for Nashville employers and technology associations to have a presence with these schools.  Nashville has so much to offer and it’s important that we get the word out to students and offer opportunities to complete technology related internships with local companies.  Through internships, companies have the opportunity to begin building a pipeline of future IT talent that will already know the organization and bring immediate value to the job.  It’s also going to be important for companies to champion social networking as a recruiting method.  This is the quickest way to get the word out on both the local and national level about job opportunities in Nashville.”

The Nashville Technology Council hopes the T3 initiative can help build stronger partnerships with colleges and universities. If you would like to get involved with T3, you can learn more about it here. You can also follow “NashHire” on Twitter @NashHire for job updates and info. Help us spread the word that Nashville is Hiring!

Stories about Data Protection are all over the news these days. This morning, a suspected member of the LulzSec hacking group was arrested by New Scotland Yard.

Last Wednesday, US senators introduced The Location Privacy Protection Act. The proposed bills are aimed at protecting the privacy of mobile phone users and safeguarding personal information of consumers stored online.

Also, the Nashville Business Journal ran a story that also addresses data loss and protection: Study: Most small businesses fail to protect data

Users of Sprint’s Android-powered mobile devices will get protection for their private information. And even the most seasoned internet shoppers need to be careful. Here in Franklin, TN a online shopper was scammed.

I reached out to some NTC members who could offer some insights on the topic of Data Protection. John Anderson from XO Communications said “From a telecom point of view, we approach data protection by creating redundancy in the clients’ own network. Redundancy via multiple connections, multiple carriers, multiple delivery technologies…in essence creating a ‘small cloud.’ But as a client pushes their data farther into ‘The Cloud’ the more they can rely on the inherent nature of a carriers’ redundancy, and not so much on creating their own.”

It’s always good to have some reminders to stay vigilant and be smart. If you are interested in learning more about Information Security, you should check out InfoSec 2011. Register here.

Here are some of the winners:

• Webby Artist of the Year: LCD Soundsystem
• Webby Special Achievement: Dan Savage
• Lifetime Achievement Award Winner: Martin Cooper
• Webby Person of the Year: Watson
• Webby Film & Person of the Year: Funny or die
• Lifetime Achievement Award Winner: Red Burns
• Webby Agency of the Year: Wieden + Kennedy
• Webby Breakout of the Year: Groupon

You can see all the winners and nominees here.

Some other interesting winners were:

SOCIAL – TABLETS & ALL OTHER DEVICES: Flipboard

SERVICES: Dropbox

INTEGRATED MOBILE EXPERIENCE: Nike+ GPS

EDUCATION & REFERENCE: HowStuffWorks App

BEST HOME/WELCOME PAGE: LEGO.com

BEST VISUAL DESIGN – FUNCTION: TED.com

IQT Inc., a business process outsourcing firm, plans to open a technical-services center in downtown Nashville that would generate up to 900 new jobs, according to sources and media reports.

Include the jobs report, link to open jobs, employers who are hiring and sponsored.