LSQHA Blog Reviews

From guest panels about the challenges women face in the technology sector, to interviews about the challenges they face in a male-dominated work environent, this collection of videos shines a light on women in tech. The list includes Caterina Fake explaining how she became co-founder of Hunch and Flickr, as well as Dianne Marsh speaking about the under representation of women in computer sciences. Also included is a video about a data center a women built, and an interview with a college student majoring in computer science. Best of all is the top video She's Geeky, which is about an all-female unconference facilitated by Kaliya Hamlin . (ReadWriteWeb's Mobile Summit on May 7 is going to be facilitated by Hamlin.) Sponsor She's Geeky Sisters Are Doing 'IT' For Themselves Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner Panel Geek girls and their birthday Geek Girl at Her Data Center Women in Electrical and Computer Engineering (WECE) 2008 Google Workshop for Women Engineers Kelly Carnes on What Needs to be Done to Increase the Role of Women and Minorities in Technology Caterina Fake, co-founder of Hunch & Flickr: In conversation with Women2.0 Dianne Marsh: Under-representation of Women in Computer Science: Why I care and why you should too Discuss

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Top 10 YouTube Videos About Women In Tech

A Collaborative Effort Between Two Firms:  Web Analytics Demystified and Altimeter Group It’s just been over a month since we published the Social CRM Research paper (over 36k views on slideshare) and we’re continuing our cadence here at Altimeter Group of publishing widely available reports under the spirit of Open Research.  This time, it’s different, we’ve aligned with who I feel are the smartest team of web analytics minds in the space, John Lovett (ex-Forrester analyst) and Eric Peterson (ex-Jupiter analyst) both of the Web Analytics Demystified firm.  Stemming from Altimeter founder Charlene Li’s (ex-Forrester Analyst) framework, we co-developed this framework, and put our collective minds to work on measuring the rapidly changing social media marketing space.   This self-funded research effort resulted in a thorough methodology as we interviewed over 40 ecosystem influencers. Interested in learning more?   Attend the no-cost webinar by registering. Industry Challenge:  ”I can’t measure social media ROI” Marketers around the globe are ranging from toe dipping to jumping all the way into the social marketing space –yet most lack a measurement yardstick.  While experiments can fly under the radar for a short term, without having a measurement strategy, you run the risk of not improving what you’re doing, justifying investments, and the appearance of being aloof to upper management.  To be successful, all programs (even new media) must have a measurement strategy, and we’ve done just that. Finally, A Measurement Framework Based on Business Objectives If you’re familiar with the Altimeter frameworks of developing a social strategy based on business objectives, then you’re in good shape, as this research report is the natural extension of the business objectives we put forth: Dialog : involves starting a conversation and offering your audience something to talk about while allowing that conversation to take on a life of its own Advocacy : activation of evangelism, word of mouth, and the spread of information through social technologies Supporting : customers may self support each other, or companies may directly assist them using social technologies. Innovation : The business objective of innovation is an extraordinary byproduct of engaging in social marketing activity. Our framework is a common denominator, yet if you’re already measuring converted leads, or actual sales from social media, great!     Yet   In this meaty report, which we hope you share with your marketing and analytics team, has actual KPI formulas which you should start to use as the start of your own cookbook. Altimeter Report: Social Marketing Analytics View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang . A Nod To the Community Spirit We’re putting a big stake out there, in order to further the industry to come together around a common set of KPIs and metrics, but we realize we don’t know all the answers.  In the spirit of Open Research , we want this to be an open framework (we’ve even licensed this under Creative Commons) to customize it and make your own for non-commercial reasons with attribution.  If you’ve ideas on how to improve it such as new KPIs, vendors, or approaches, we’re listening, and will incorporate and improve this community body of knowledge for all to benefit. Related Links I’ll link to others that extend the conversation, feel free to embed the slideshare on your own site. John Lovett, my co-author, on the Web Analytics Demystified Blog . Note, they used their branded report template, but the content is the same. The Altimeter Blog (cross posting) Christine Tran is the lead researcher on this report, she writes a smart blog Lithium’s Phil Soffer, VP of Product Marketing, has shared it from the Lithium Blog

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Altimeter Report: Social Marketing Analytics (Altimeter Group & Web Analytics Demystified)

Earlier this week, we reported on the fact that the first quarter of the year saw venture capitalist investments drop from the end of last year , but start at a higher rate than the beginning of 2009. In the article we mentioned the boom and bust cycle that is found in economics, which in America has been marked by the dot-com bust at the turn of the century, and the financial crisis of recent times. These two downturns are part of a cycle of ups and downs seen throughout history, but could they be getting shorter and more frequent? Sponsor Peter Bodine, managing director of Allegis Capital , recently guest blogged on Entrepreneur Corner over at VentureBeat and provides an interesting angle on the current state of venture valuations and how it could signal a quickening boom and bust cycle. As he sees it, the high prices recently placed on a few startups echoe those seen before the dot-com bust. " Blippy , only four months old, is reported to be worth about $38 million. Quora , a massive user-created question-and-answer site that is still beta-testing , was estimated at roughly $86 million in its most recent round. And the buzz is that Foursquare will be worth at least $80 million after it completes the round it's currently negotiating," writes Bodine. "There is a lesson in all this for startups. If you are demonstrating noticeable success, seek additional funding now, not later." Bodine anticipates a drop in VC funding this summer, a time he says is a common slow period for VCs, and warns that startups late to the game could "miss the action" and end up competing with more companies later in the year. The summer is a popular time for incubators, and many companies exit these programs and seek funding in the fall and winter, so Bodine suggests going after capital now if your startup has any measurable progress. VC, M&A and IPO numbers have been suffering in the last few years with the economic crisis and have been difficult to forecast. M&A numbers broke records in the first quarter of 2010, but IPOs continued their near non-existent levels. VCs raised their lowest amount of funding in an opening quarter since 1993, but invested a healthy amount . One could call this atmosphere unstable, but I'm not so sure that it will collapse again in the middle of the year. Following the dot-com bust, the VC market steadily climbed back to the levels we saw in 2007 and 2008 before the housing failure, and I wouldn't be surprised to see similar gradual growth throughout 2010. It is unlikely that the yearly figures at the end of 2010 will be impressive in comparison to earlier years, but this year should be an improvement over the lows seen more recently. There are certainly risks involved with founding a startup and seeking funding in this economy, but hey, what would startups be without taking a few calculated risks in hopes of being rewarded? Photo by Flickr user garymalkn . Discuss

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Are Windows of Opportunity Quickly Narrowing for Startups?

Throughout the economic downtown of the last few years, which is only now slowly beginning to turn around, there have been few industries that continued to create jobs and support the economy. We've mentioned before (as many others have ) how the government should be doing its best to foster more entrepreneurship, one of the few areas continuing to create jobs, and Wednesday the National Venture Capital Association and StartUpHire.com job board released data supporting these suggestions. Sponsor According to a combined press release from the two organizations, StartupHire.com saw a 16% increase in job postings in the first quarter of 2010 from the end of 2009. The service says over 13,000 new jobs were posted in Q1 at an average of 4,400 per month, but is quick to note that its numbers represent only a fraction of the actual job creating in the industry. "As positive as our job numbers are trending, the aggregate venture-backed job growth is even greater - perhaps double what StartUpHire.com currently captures," says Steve Fredrick, founder of StartUpHire.com. "It is critical that our government recognizes the power of these companies and support venture investment so that we can continue to build more companies and hire more Americans." According to other studies referenced in the press release, public companies that were once venture-backed currently employ 12.1 million people, and current venture-backed companies employ roughly another half million people. NVCA president Mark Heesen believes startups and entrepreneurship are going to play a large role in the nation's path toward financial prosperity. "The start-up company engine continues to churn, serving as a critical source of new jobs and opportunities for thousands of Americans," says Heesen. "Our country's entrepreneurial spirit combined with access to risk capital will continue to drive this economic recovery." Unfortunately, legislation from Washington has been a little schizophrenic in terms of helping startups and entrepreneurship. While a Startup Visa bill that could increase the amount of foreign entrepreneurs creating jobs in America was introduced earlier this year, proposed financial regulations could hamper Angel investing and make it harder for companies to get funding. Hopefully further evidence, like that seen Wednesday from StartUpHire.com, will help to influence legislation to help promote entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial education. Photo by Flickr user YtseJam Photography . Discuss

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Startups Continue to Hit the Accelerator on Job Creation

Every now and then we hear the story of the entrepreneur who left his or her steady job at a large company to follow their dreams and create a startup, but we aren't all as daring and brave to quit steady work, especially in a time of economic uncertainty. If you have the entrepreneurial itch but aren't in a situation that would allow you to sacrifice your day job, there are still ways you can scratch said itch and bring innovation to a "startup" within a larger company. Sponsor This morning I talked with Eric Ries , the driving force behind the " lean startup " movement, which encourages high efficiency and meticulous metrics tracking within entrepreneurial ventures. Ries, who is often asked to speak on the subject, says he noticed a trend among some of the people attending his talks. Many managers from large companies were coming to his sessions to learn what they could, because, as Ries discovered, the principals of lean startups can exist within larger corporations that are attempting to innovate. "A startup is a human institution designed to create something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty," Ries told ReadWriteWeb. "There is nothing in there about the size of the company, or what industry you're in, or whether you're the manager of a division or if you're two guys in a garage, its just about the conditions in which you operate." As he points out, there are times in larger corporations when divisions are created to work on a new project, and similar rules and guidelines for managing that project which come from startups can be used here as well. Ries says that managers, like entrepreneurs, are taking risks on new ideas, and when they create a new division, they are essentially investing the company's time and money as a VC would invest funds in a startup. "The more I started to work with those managers I started to notice that they were having very familiar sounding arguments," Ries says. "The arguments between a venture-backed entrepreneur and a venture capitalist are almost exactly the same word for word as between these 'intrepreneurs' and their CFOs because the same issues come up." One of the ways larger corporations can implement entrepreneurial innovation into their businesses is to allow for what Ries calls "innovation inside the box," or a fenced off sandbox for experimentation with new products. By creating a place where employees with ideas can test a tweak to a feature, or where new ideas can be built within certain constraints, companies can greatly increase their potential for innovation. "The real value is [this] starts to catalyze change because by changing the way you work you start to accelerate that feedback loop and that can become the basis for making other changes," Ries says. Unfortunately, most larger corporations aren't allowing for this open sandbox of innovation within their companies, and choose to buy up technology and talent from startups. Ries agrees that many entrepreneurs get frustrated working inside a larger company, but he says the combination of these entrepreneurs with a walled off innovation playground could provide for some amazing innovations. Companies could also benefit from the addition of a sandbox by inspiring their existing employees to be innovative, instead of wrangling up entrepreneurs from a startup, which would save them money in the end. "They have this idea that a certain alchemy will happen that 'if I bring these special people into my organization, they will teach my regular people how to be special,' and that's just a formula for breeding resentment," Ries told ReadWriteWeb. "If the people doing the acquiring had more of a theory about how entrepreneurship is supposed to work they could start to think of better ways to plug an acquired company into the larger organization, taking advantage of what they're good at without destroying it." If you're a budding entrepreneur or a manager at a large company, there is an excellent chance to hear from Ries and others on these concepts and others this Friday at the Startup Lessons Learned conference in San Francisco. If you can't make it to the Bay Area, there are simulcasts occurring Friday in nearly 50 cities worldwide, many of which are free or very inexpensive, so RSVP and bask in the lean startup goodness. Photo by Flickr user longhorndave . Discuss

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Thinking Inside the Box: Eric Ries On Creating Startups Within Large Organizations