Posts Tagged ‘durham’

Posted on September 19, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

1st Annual Blacks in Technology Entrepreneurship Week, November 6 – 13, 2011 Durham, NC

Originally posted on the SistaSense:

1ST Annual Blacks in Technology Entrepreneurship Week, Durham NC

November 6 – 13, 2011 Durham, NC – The 1st Annual Blacks in Technology Entrepreneurship Week holds promise like no other. The theme for this year’s event is “Changing the Face of Technology” and focus’ on NC natives and residents who are indeed changing the face and landscape of technology entrepreneurship. Katrina M Harrell in connection with 100 Urban Entrepreneurs of NC will honor six extraordinary minority innovators in technology and entrepreneurship:

• Wayne Sutton and Angela Benton co-founders of NewMe Accelerator,
• Tiffani Bell founder of Pencilyou.in and part of NewMe Accelerator project who are each subjects of CNN: “Black in America 4”;
• Stephanie Harris and Roderick Frizzelle cofounders of ibuzzn.com, and
• LaShanda Henry, founder of Black Business Women Online.

This year’s kick-off event on Sunday, November 6, 2011 will be held at the spectacular and historic Bay 7 in the American Tobacco District, Durham NC, as a networking and celebration event not only celebrating the accomplishments of the honorees but also providing unsurpassed networking opportunity among Top entrepreneurs throughout the state. Networking begins at 6:00pm with the honoree event & program beginning promptly at 6:30pm. November 13, 2011 viewing party of the CNN show to be announced.

An array of sponsorship and vendor opportunities is also available. Any questions regarding sponsorship should be directed to the contact information below. The event founder seeks a goal to raise $10,000 to help fund an Entrepreneurship program at a Historically Black College or University within the state of North Carolina.

Registration for the event can be completed online by visiting 
BLACKSINTECHNOLOGYENTREPRENEURSHIPWEEK.YOLASITE.COM or by contacting Katrina Harrell at 919-438-BITE (2483) or via email: katrina.harrell@100ue.org.

About 100 Urban Entrepreneurs – 100 Urban Entrepreneurs is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to helping provide a long-term economic boost to urban communities throughout the United States by supporting entrepreneurship at its earliest stages. 100 Urban Entrepreneurs seeks to identify, fund and mentor 100 of the most promising young businesspeople from economically disadvantaged communities who might otherwise lack access to startup capital and a professional network. Our goal is to provide the tools to help talented young dreamers create viable, profitable companies and create jobs within urban America. For more information, visitwww.100UrbanEntrepreneurs.org.

About Katrina M Harrell – North Carolina resident and Businessperson,Katrina is the founding CEO of Your Simple Bookkeeper, Inc. which was the recipient of 100 Urban Entrepreneur funding grant in 2010. As founder of BITE week, Katrina Harrell is an advocate for entrepreneurship as a wealth builder for people of color and women. Ms. Harrell is also the President of the KM Harrell Group, LLC a strategic business development & consulting firm offering business strategy solutions to create profitable business models. She has been featured in blackenterprise.com, Top 200 Leading Moms in business by Start-upNation.com and a host of other media outlets. For more information, visit www.katrinamharrell.com.

Event Title Sponsors: American Tobacco District, Your Simple Bookkeeper, Inc., ibuzzn.com, Opulent Suites Media & PR, Selections entertainment.

Posted on September 11, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Photo Gallery: Heroes, Villains and Special Effects from the Museum of Life and Science

Today at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC they held an exhibit focused on the science behind entertainment in the fields of special effects, make-up artistry, video game design, comic book art, and staged combat. My friend/partner and founder of TriOut Lawrence Ingraham had a booth setup for his iPhone and iPad kid application gaming business called Tantrum Apps. I stopped by the museum to show my support and got a chance to meet Dave L. @sonofalink and @TeddHuff as well as a chance to see a lot of awesome “Heroes, Villains and Special Effects”.

Here’s a list of the exhibit participates:

Dean Jones
Emmy Award-winning special effects make-up artist and director will be on-hand displaying his masks and making up models. His impressive credentials include Pirates of the Caribbean, Day of the Dead, Star Trek and more!

David McClutchey
Local actor, stunt coordinator, and fight choreographer demonstrating stunts
with a sparring partner.

Gary Destefano
Accomplished artist, science fiction diorama and model maker presenting his superhero and
pop culture work.

Star Wars characters
The Carolina 501st Garrison, a volunteer international Star Wars costuming organization which makes appearances to raise funds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, will roam throughout the Museum grounds.

Stuntman Science
Test our mini stunt men and woman as they crash cars and jump off buildings. What can you do to keep them safe? Come to The Lab on the second floor 10:30-12:30 and 1:30-3:30 on Saturday.
GAMING COMPANIES
Redstorm Entertainment, Inc. division of Ubisoft Entertainment will demonstrate how game companies take ideas and translate them into features through animation and prototyping. The studio will show off early, playable prototypes of past projects and show how concept art helps to bridge the gap between the ideas and the final game.
Epic Games Inc. Established in 1991, Epic Games develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company has created multiple million-selling, award-winning titles in its Unreal series, including Unreal Tournament 3 for PC, PLAYSTATION®3 and Xbox 360®. Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 has also been recognized as the number one game engine by Develop magazine.

Virtual Heroes, a Durham based company will demonstrate and discuss the design and creation of its Moonbase Alpha game, an exciting new, free online video game designed to show how NASA content could be combined with a cutting-edge game engine to produce an experience that inspires interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

Republic of Fun (SATURDAY ONLY) has created a proprietary technology and process for using crowd-sourcing as a way to produce and develop games for iPhone, WiiWare, Xbox LIVE Arcade, the PlayStation Network and now iPad. By focusing on community, RoF gives gamers a chance to be involved in the development process, producing games that they really want.

Tantrum Apps Fun, simple games to play with your children, and great distractions to avoid a meltdown. Each game is designed by parents, for parents, featuring high quality images and sounds along with bright vibrant colors. Educational and entertaining, Tantrum Apps iPhone games are great for kids of all ages.

Walking around with my trusty iPhone 4 I took a few photos. Below are a some of my favorites along with an embed flickr gallery.

The exhibit is open tomorrow and if you have the opportunity I recommend you stopping by.

Posted on August 13, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Startup lessons for entrepreneurs and businesses from Mark Cuban. Local Tech Wire Event notes & video

Yesterday I attended a Venture Capital Symposium hosted by Local Techwire that featured Mark Cuban @mcuban at the American Tobacco Complex, in Durham, NC. Other speakers included Mike Doernberg, CEO of ReverbNation, Rich Lee, Founder & CEO of Hosted Solutions, Aaron Houghton, Co-founder, iContact, Mitchell Mumma, Partner of Intersouth Partners. The speakers participated in a panel then Mark Cuban delivered a very entertaining, honest and thought provoking keynote to about 250 entrepreneurs, venture capitalist and local media. Mark’s keynote and the panel discussion was about the challenges of starting a company, sustaining one, how to hire smart, being successful and more. I jotted down a few notes throughout the event that you can read below.

Question: What are the challenges facing entrepreneurs today?
Panel Answer: Access to capital, access to talent, themselves, lack of focus
Entrepreneurs need to focus on what they need to do to be successful
Lack of focus
Mark Cuban: @mcuban – No obstacles; now is the best time ever to start a company. Start something you love.
It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur right now.
They can be successful because the talent.

Question: What is the most important trait you look for when you want to add someone to your team?
Mark Cuban: It depends on the job
Panel Answer: Look at the fit to see if they can work in the culture

Question:What role does luck to play in entrepreneur success?
Panel Answer:
Luck is the relevant to scale
You can fail 101 times and get it right one time and you’re an overnight success
You need to identity what you’re good at and be willing to change.
Take a finical accounting course

Poll asked to the panelist:
What kind of cell phone do you have in your pocket?
Mark Cuban: Sidekick for email & a Droid X
Other Panelist: iPhone, iPhone, blackberry
Do you Tweet? 2 yes and 2 no
Do you have an iPad? 3 yes and 1 no
Do you use Social Networking sites? Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
If you have to pick one technology that will impact consumers & entrepreneurs in the future what will it be?
Cloud computing/smartphone
Wireless bandwidth
Smart Grid Power Technology
Mobile Technology

Question:What advice would you have to a child picking a career in the future?
Don’t’ worry about what you do but who you work with. Do what’s important to you and build brand you first.

Video from Mark Cuban’s keynote via @WRAL

Mark Cuban Keynote Notes:

1st Rule for every company:
The best equity for every company is sweat equity.Most think the 1st thing to do is to raise money
Don’t think VC’s are the best thing, they are vulture capitalist
Don’t always look to raise money but look for ways not to raise money
Tech has become inexpensive
Think about how you’re going to cut your own cost & spend as little money as possible to start a business

Sales Cures All:
When you do a business, who is going to be the #1 sales person?
Develop a culture where everyone in the organize sales
It’s all about selling,
If you’re not comfortable selling your product, then who will?
You have to be the king or queen of sales
Have good customers service

Ideas:
The ideas are the easy part, everybody has one
The hard part is the preparation
Ask yourself who hard are you willing to work?
If you’re married you have a disadvantage,
Understand in your mind you have some challenges ahead

Don’t lie to yourself
It may be your idea but you may not the best person to do it

Learn how to kick your own a**
There’s not one business that another company someone has not said, I can do that better
Someone is always trying to do it better
Put yourself in your competitors shoes
Ask yourself, what would you do to kill what you have
You have to resale to your own customers every day
No customers wants to feel take advantage of
At the end of the day you don’t own your business, your customers do
If you don’t put your customers first, someone else will
Great customer service is like being a great lover.
But sometimes you have setbacks
There are going to times when things go wrong but you can’t let them freak you out! Learn and move forward.
If you’re not making mistakes you’re not trying
Come up with a list of elements that work for you.

Other:
Culture is important to your organization
The two people Mark learned the most about how to deal with the media was from Dennis Rodman & Paris Hilton.
Learn how to communicate with the media,
Media is always looking for a story.
Put yourself in the the shoes where the media needs you.
Understand what business you’re in
Think about what you really are selling!

You can see a few flickr photos from the event here and scan twitter via the #techwire hashtag.

Posted on January 9, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

14 Social Media Professionals to watch in 2010 from the Triangle, NC

If there’s two things most of my friends and colleagues know about me is that I love living in the Triangle, NC area which includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill and that I love technology/gadgets/social media. This area has one of the largest and smartest technology communities in the world and more than often I think is over looked by others.

A few weeks ago I saw a tweet from someone asking about what cities have strong social media communities and they were listing New York, Austin, Miami and the “Valley” which are worthy but don’t forget about the Triangle area too. With more companies starting to implement social media strategies into their marketing efforts or use social media for customer service we have seen an impact from various companies in the area either from creating new positions or launching new products or using social media for community outreach.

Below is a list of social media professionals in the Triangle Area who I believe are ones to watch in 2010.

1. David Thomas
Title: Social Media Manager for SAS
Twitter: @DavidBThomas
Url: http://blogs.sas.com/socialmedia/

2. Nathan Gilliatt
Title: Principal, Social Target and organizer of AnalyticsCamp
Twitter: @gilliatt
Url: http://net-savvy.com/executive/

3. GinnySkal
Title: Social Media Specialist for Cree
Twitter: @ginnyskal
Url: http://ginnyskal.com/

4. Morgan Siem
Title: Social Media Strategist at Media Two Interactive
Twitter: @morgansiem
Url: http://www.mediatwopointoh.com/

5. Adam Covati
Title: CoFounder of Argyle Social and Founder of http://idek.net
Twitter: @Covati
Url: http://adamcovati.com/

6. Angela Connoer
Title: Author of ’18 Rules of Community Engagement.’ Online community manager and strategist at WRAL
Twitter: @communitygirl
Url: http://blog.angelaconnor.com

7. Catherine Mears
Title: Social Media Specialist at AICPA
Twitter: @catmears
Url:

8. Dan London
Title: Director of Online Marketing @ ShareFile.com
Twitter: @Danlondon
Url: http://www.dan-london.com

9. Phil Buckley
Title: Support Developer at McClatchy Interactive
Twitter: @1918
Url: http://www.1918.com/

10. Karlie Justus
Title: PR/ Social Media Officer with N.C. State Fair & NC Dept. of Agriculture.
Twitter: @KarlieJ
Url:

11. Olalah Njenga
Title: Marketing Strategist at the YellowWood Group
Twitter: @Olalah
Url: http://www.yellowwoodgroup.com

12. Gregory NG
Title: VP Creative Director at Brooks Bell Interactive.
Twitter: @gregoryng
Url: http://www.followgreg.com/

13. Brian McDonald
Title: Vice President of Marketing & Social Media at SignalShare
Twitter: @bmcd67
Url: http://zen-marketing.blogspot.com

14. Andy Beal
Title: Founder of Trackur.com, author of Radically Transparent, editor of MarketingPilgrim.com
Twitter: @Andybeal
Url: http://www.andybeal.com

UPDATE: I forgot Chris Moody. Sorry Chris.
15. Chris Moody
Title: Social Marketing Manager at Bandwidth.com
Twitter: @cnmoody
Url: http://www.chris-moody.com

You can also follow my list of Triangle Social Media professionals on Twitter from my Triangle To Watch list.

Please note, I do know all of the individuals on the list and this not a buddy list or a list by the numbers of their twitter followers or etc. It’s a list of professionals from various companies in the Triangle who I believe will have an impact locally and nationally in the social media space. If you’re on the list, don’t let me down.

*Not included in this are my partners/friends from OurHashtag who are very active in the social media scene in the Triangle Area. They include:
Kipp Bodnar
Ryan Boyles
Jeff Cohen

What are your thoughts on the list and/or who did I leave off and why?

Posted on August 19, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Announcing the Social Media Business Forum, 10/23 Durham, NC

http://socialmediabusinessforum.com

The Social Media Business Forum will feature speakers from marketing companies, technology companies, and social networks discussing ways in which business communications have changed due to social media. We are planning sessions on internal and external communications methods for both B2B and B2C companies. There will be an estimated 200 people in attendance.

A few of the speakers announced are:

• Jason Falls, Principal, Social Media Explorer
• Geno Church, Word of Mouth Inspiration Officer, Brains on Fire
• Laurie Smithwick, Founder,Kirtsy.com
• Angela Benton, Publisher,BlackWeb20.com
• Jason Keath, Founder, Social Fresh
• Patrick O’Keefe, iFroggy Network
• Kipp Bodnar, Social Media Marketing Manager, Howard Merrell & Partners
• Eric Miltsch, IT/Internet Director, Auction Direct USA
• Andre Blackman, Public Health 2.0 enthusiast
• Jeff Tippett, Outreach Strategist for Calvert Holdings
• Ryan Boyles, Community Manager for IBM’s Project Zero
• Corvida Raven, Author, SheGeeks.net
• Jeff Cohen, Partner, OurHashtag
• Gregory Ng, VP Creative Director at Brooks Bell Interactive

More speakers to be announced soon. Registration starts today with limited early bird registration at $125.00. You can register here: http://socialmediabusinessforum.eventbrite.com

For updates you can follow the Social Media Business Forum on Twitter at @smbusinessforum using the hashtag #SMBF or on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Social-Media-Business-Forum/118721852377

Contact information for the Social Media Business Forum is:

OurHashtag
8311 Brier Creek Pkwy Ste 105-432
Raleigh NC 27617
Phone: (980) 939-8956
Contact at socialmediabusinessforum dot com
Twitter: @smbusinessforum

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