Avery Cohen from Metrist Partners will be presenting "Ten Tips for Improving Your Search Engine Optimization" at Windy City Social's Social Media and Online Marketing Summit. The event also includes one-on-one consultations with the speakers, so bring a list of questions!

Guests will connect with other marketers and learn about the latest trends in Social Media and Online Marketing from leaders in the industry. People will leave the event with new, innovative ideas about how to leverage Twitter, Facebook, SEO, E-mail Marketing and Experience Marketing.

Several of the speakers and sponsors will be on hand for 15 minute consultations where they’ll give attendees immediate steps they can take to improve their actual site or campaign! And our speakers are going to pick a few emails and websites submitted by attendees in advance to critique during presentations.

Speaker Highlights

• Creating an Experience They Will Remember (in a good way!): Cereality Founders Rick Bacher and David Roth
  
• E-mail Makeovers: Reagan Taylor, NCR
  
• Top 10 Tips for Improving Your Natural Search Rankings: Avery Cohen, Metrist Partners
  
• Tips on How to Get the Most out of the New Fan Pages: Brad Keown from Facebook
  
• Panel on Using Twitter to Promote Big Business

Consulting Highlights

• Email Makeovers
  
• SEO Review of Your Site
  
• Strategic Blog or Website Review: Strategic Marketing & Blogging Expert Liz Strauss (limited spaces)
  
• Twitter Tune-up: Register for Twitter and get tips from top tweeters
  
• Social Media Monitoring Set-up: Learn about free monitoring services and get help signing up for one of them.

Check Out the Full Line-up at Windy City Social

Or REGISTER NOW!

Labels: chicago, chicago networking events, online social networks, social media, windy city, windy city social

Entrepreneurial Innovators Take to the Stage

Part One: The Winners

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Ten entrepreneurs presented their five-minute pitches in an effort to win the top prize of $3,000 in the MIT Enterprise Forum’s annual Whiteboard Challenge. The top three presenters won $3,000, $1,500, and $500 in prize money from sponsor law firm K&L Gates.

There were about 90 entries this year. A panel from The Big Idea Forum preselected the ten finalists. Last year’s Whiteboard Challenge received entries from approximately 60 entrepreneurs.

The Winner: TiltAlign Therapy for Cerebral Palsy

This year’s winning entrepreneurial idea, as selected by a panel of four judges and a phone-in vote from the crowd, was Northwestern student, James Rein. Rein’s winning concept was called "TiltAlign", a therapy for people with cerebral palsy.

Rein, a Biomedical Engineering student at Northwestern stated that there are 800,000 people with cerebral palsy in the US. One of the symptoms of the disease is that patients have poor motor control and poor perception of where they are in space. Their spine and extremities get tilted from vertical and movement becomes difficult and strenuous.

This symptom of cerebral palsy is generally treated by physical therapy. One of the more common treatments is to teach them to move in a six foot cage, as seen  in these videos. Rein pointed that the efficacy of "cage therapy" for cerebral palsy is "just OK" and the cage itself costs five- to six-thousand dollars and is too big to fit in most homes. Thus the patient doesn’t have frequent access to the therapy.

Rein’s TiltAlign concept is to provide a more portable feedback mechanism to provide feedback to patients when they are misaligned. The device he described uses 1) a device with an accelerometer (the electronics that tell when an iPhone or Wii controller is moving), 2) attached to the chest, arms, or legs by a Velcro strap. The controller communicates to 3) a transceiver which controls 4) a device, either a DVD Player or Music, so that music or video instructions pause when the patient becomes misaligned during therapy.

The TiltAlign concept provides rewards for maintaining good habits and provides instant feedback. It can be used at home and the controls would have adjustable sensitivity, customizable for each patient’s needs. He estimated that the cost of each unit would be $200, compared to the thousands for the "therapy cage".

My question, prior to Rein's winning the prize, was to ask why this couldn't be a software solution built on Nintendo's Wii platform?

Second Place: The BFF <3 Necklace

The second-place prize of $1,500 went to Avelo Roy, who presented eMotion’s "BFF ‹3 Necklace". Roy said eMotion’s vision is to serve people who are physically separate and emotionally connected. Roy is also no stranger to entrepreneurial competitions, the eMotion team won $25,000 in November at Entrepreneur Idol, held at Northwestern University.

There are 8 million "tweens", girls between the ages of eight and thirteen. 27% of them participate in online social communities. These girls are three times more likely to be the victims of cyber bullying or pedophiles. eMotion’s product, the $29.99 BFF<3 Necklace gives people a way to add friends in person. Once matched, you can share private messages and communicate via the necklace. CNN.com describes the "BFF ‹3 Necklace" as "a wireless communication device that takes the form of a fashion accessory."

The BFF Necklace is heart shaped and has color LEDs. The units are encoded so that friends who share necklaces can join each other’s networks. They can send messages that are conveyed by coded configurations of the blinking LEDs and they can exchange private messages on the eMotion web site.

The actual use of the BFF Necklace wasn’t clear to many audience members (anecdotally), nor was it clear (to me) how this product could protect from either cyber bullies or pedophiles. However, the company has assembled an impressive board of advisors, is selling an introductory product, and, according to Roy, the site is "becoming a destination" for their target audience.

Third Place: Portion Controlled Dinnerware

The third-place prize went to Thu Nguyen, who brought to the competition a simple, practical entrepreneurial idea: Portion Controlled Dinnerware. "For as long as I can remember, I have been dieting," said Nguyen in her opening.

After many diets, Nguyen was diagnosed as being "pre-diabetic". She was put on a special diet that required counting points – "I had ten choices per day, compared to the twenty to thirty choices I was eating before the diagnosis." She started measuring her portions, especially when eating carbohydrates. This meant that when she dined with friends, she had to take her portions in measuring cups. It was both complicated and stigmatizing.

Nguyen’s entrepreneurial solution to this situation was to conceptualize dinnerware that integrates portion control into the design. The designs on the bowls and plates clearly and artistically identify half-cup and one-cup servings. Nguyen envisioned, on the whiteboard, a wine glass with portion control markings for eight or sixteen ounces, much to the amusement of the audience. Her concept enables portion control to be managed without having to pull out measuring cups.

Food can be attractively served without the extra, potentially embarrassing, step of measuring when serving. Nguyen placed in the competition with a simple solution to a non-obvious, but frequently recurring problem.

Those were the winners. Over the next couple of days, I’ll provide a write-up of the other seven entrepreneur’s presentations from the 2009 MIT Enterprise Forum Whiteboard Challenge.

Labels: bff necklace, chicago networking events, competition, entrepreneurs, innovation, MIT-EF, portion controlled dinnerware, tiltalign

Hope Bertrand has been running Windy City Social events in Chicago, combining social and business networking, for about a year. The WCS event for December was co-sponsored by Aaron Kahlow, who runs the Online Marketing Summit. I have been to the OMS in San Diego (the next one is in February), and to the OMS traveling show that came to Navy Pier last summer. The OMS events have been content-rich and case-study oriented, so last Wednesday's WCS/OMS event had a lot of credibility for both its content and Bertrand's ability to attract a crowd -- over 200 people attended the event at the Mid-America Club.

Social networks are growing at a phenomenal rate, and in the Chicago market the focus is on Facebook and LinkedIn, with MySpace running a distant third. More recently, Twitter has been a source of interest. Speaking as an analyst, we see four main business drivers behind the current popularity of social networks: 1) As these media expand, they are generating a large volume of viral links, making them an effective part of Search Engine Optimization programs. In addition to SEO benefits, we see Facebook as a growing referrer to many web sites as people actively use the site. For example, one report shows Facebook adding 600,000 new users a day during the holiday season. 3) Some companies are finding ways to leverage these sites as a marketing channel. For example, Dell has sold over $1M in refurbished and return stock via Twitter, and Barak Obama's presidential victory is attributed to his ability to harness the power of online social networking. 4) Individuals are able to keep in touch with each other with little effort.

Online Social Networking is a new phenomena, and there are very few experts, people with the experience of success -- the lightning strike of a successful viral campaign; the proven ability to measure and adapt to the changes of a new and dynamic interactive environment; and the ability to communicate the opportunity and translate success into a new area. Many people are exploring new paths to success, while others are providing a cartography of the known world of online social networking.

The WCS/OMS event held last Wednesday, December 10, had ample time for social/business networking and offered an interesting panel discussion on Social Media. The panel had local experts and a few who, like Kahlow, were in town for the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference. Panelists included Jim Jacoby of the Chicago-based agency Manifest Digital; Kevin Ryan, a strategic marketing consultant who writes for MediaPost and Search Engine Watch; Mark Carter, who has been working on a social marketing campaign for savingtheworld.net. All of the panelists had had some success at helping clients engage with their customers and prospects through social networking.

Kahlow started off by identifying things people don't "get" about Social Media -- "I hate it when people who don't know me ask to join my network or be my 'friend'"; "I don't have any contacts"; "What to do on different social networks"; and finally he asked the panel, "What do you think of Twitter?" Ryan, who provided lively humorous commentary throughout the event, described Twitter as "a parade of banalities." While some companies are using it as "a solid part of their marketing" programs, his opinion is that Twitter is small, untested, and somewhat unreliable.

"How can you really use LinkedIn, beyond collecting names? How can you really get to network with people?" Jim Jacoby responded that you can engage in LinkedIn's Q&A forums and request introductions to people in your contacts' networks.

Responding to a question on the role of Facebook, Carter said that on all social networks, "the more you share, the more people will share with you." He is mentoring College students, and warns them that what they put on Facebook should be considered public. He said that his Facebook page is strictly professional. Also, he suggested using Friendfeed to enable participation in multiple social platforms.

Someone from a local non-profit organization asked for advice in running a viral campaign to build support through social networks. Carter: Friend the leaders of groups, asking "how can I help you?" They have a trusted audience. It may take 6 to 12 months to build trust, but if you can do that, you will see results. Ryan noted that Search Engines have special programs for non-profits, Google gives out grants up to $10K to non-profits. He also recommended posting Video and Audio, to "tag the crap out of it" and push out press releases.

The next question was rephrased by Kahlow: "How do you spam people on Facebook without pissing them off?" Carter says, Just don't over-do it. He recommends starting group pages around subject matter, and promoting thorough those. Another recommendation from Kahlow was to "seed the discussion," with topics that should be discussed, as you might on any list or forum.

Another question had to do with the usefulness of Facebook pages vs. an email list like Google or Yahoo Groups. Carter said that the pages have limited functionality, while groups offer one degree of seperation and a continual stream of useful information. Ryan chimed in with "Don't. Just don't. Facebook is not a deus ex machina to trump actual marketing strategies."

As the final questions rolled in, audience member Jeff Willinger offered some practical advice based on his experiences, "Nobody has more fun at work than I do," and taking a counterpoint to Carter's "strictly professional" approach to Facebook, Willinger's advice was to "update your status regularly." It lets people know who you are and what you are up to.

As always, I appreciate your comments and questions

Labels: chicago networking events, online social networks