The May Report: 12/12/2010: With all the hoopla about Groupon, it’s nice to know that some firms that grew slowly, steadily and were founded in 1999 have finally made out A-OK: SurePayroll is sold for $115MM in cash to PayChex (PAYX) with promises that things will stay in tact; the VCs get their $17MM back and then some; Troy Henikoff and Michael Alter are happy campers; Tech The Halls draws 170 on a cold wintry night and yours truly stays until 3am or when the last dog dies — and no Rollyson, Dalka or Willinger so it was a good night

Editor and publisher: ron@themayreport.com, ronaldmay@aol.com, www.themayreport.com , 773-525-3944.

Assistant editor: Melanie Adcock, iPHONE: 312-259-0610, melanie_adcock@msn.com

If you missed an article, go here: www.tmronline.com/A55951/tmrarticles.nsf/vwFullNewsletter
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Scoop section:

– At long last, a firm started in 1999, SurePayroll, sees a “liquidity event” as it is sold to Pay Chex (PAYX) for $115MM in cash; Michael Alter to stay on and the investors finally get some return on their $17MM in venture capital. Congrats to Troy Henikoff, Michael Alter and all the roughly 170 folks at SurePayroll
– PayChex financials and management
– Briefly noted, by Ron May

[Editor's note: May here. If you missed it, a report went out on Friday night with the header:
The May Report: 12/10/2010: Funding Feeding Frenzy, held all day Wednesday at The Sync, a success with 13 firms presenting & about 130 attendees: Guppy Bowl winner PointBearing; Piranha Pond winner: ISIS Power; and Great White Cage winner: TIP Solutions Inc.; ReadOz raises $2.2MM; Some old timers like Mike Profita of Appropos and Josh Metnick of many firms start up a "Facebook site" for high earners with high net worth; EduLender is getting White House attention; Sick Tea is good for those who are not sick too and the brand name Sick Mexican could prove to be interesting....

It can be found here;
www.tmronline.com/A55951/tmrarticles.nsf/vwFullNewsletter ]
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GP Ventures is focused on M&A advisory services for technology companies. GPV has a wide range of industry contacts and experience, both national and international.

2010 has been a great year in terms of activity and it appears that 2011 will continue this trend. I will look forward to talking to you about your strategic goals.

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*Acquisition Programs in the fields of IT Services and Printed Circuit Boards (bare boards)

*Sell-Side Program for 40 Million euro Fiber Optics Company

*Business Development program for Japanese electronics distributor seeking new products in the fields of semiconductors and electronics

*Strategic Partner search for US “Green” device charger manufacturer and Canadian application mapping software firm.

Contact GPV to discuss a program for your technology company.

Tom Kastner
GP Ventures
847-431-3993
mail@gp-ventures.com

GP Ventures: M&A Advisory Services for high technology companies in Electronics, Equipment, IT services, Software, PCBs, Defense, Distribution
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___________________________
The Scoop section:
____________________
At long last, a firm started in 1999, SurePayroll, sees a “liquidity event” as it is sold to Pay Chex (PAYX) for $115MM in cash; Michael Alter to stay on and the investors finally get some return on their $17MM in venture capital. Congrats to Troy Henikoff, Michael Alter and all the roughly 170 folks at SurePayroll

++++++++++++++++++++++

www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-09/paychex-buys-surepayroll-in-115-million-deal.html

Paychex buys SurePayroll in $115 million deal
Dec 9, 2010 10:46 AM CT By The Associated Press
inShare6More
Business Exchange Buzz up! Digg Print Email ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) – Payroll and benefits service provider Paychex Inc. said Thursday it is buying software maker SurePayroll Inc. for $115 million in cash to expand customers’ access to online payroll options.

Paychex specializes in small- and medium-sized businesses, millions of whom still process payrolls manually. Martin Mucci, president and CEO of Rochester, N.Y.-based Paychex, said the acquisition will give Paychex’s customers access to technology that lets them process payroll in minutes through the Internet.

“As some small businesses get more comfortable doing business online, and as they demand more control, convenience and online product functionality, we believe the ‘new manual’ method of doing payroll will be the online model Paychex can now offer through SurePayroll,” Mucci said in a statement.

Glenview, Ill.-based SurePayroll will operate as a subsidiary of Paychex once the transaction closes at the end of this year. Michael Alter will continue to serve as president of SurePayroll, which currently serves about 30,000 small businesses.

Paychex shares dropped 1 percent to $30.15 in morning trading.

Copyright © 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

www.rttnews.com/content/BreakingNews.aspx?Id=1502725&SimRec=1&Node=

Paychex To Acquire SurePayroll For $115 Mln. 12/9/2010 1:12 PM ET
RELATED NEWS
Paychex To Buy Privately-held SurePayroll – Quick Facts
Paychex Promotes Neil Rohrer To VP, Payroll Sales In Eastern U.S. – Quick Facts
Paychex 2010 Annual Meeting At 10:00 AM ET
Paychex 2010 Annual Meeting At 10:00 AM ET
Paychex Promotes Martin Mucci To President, CEO – Update
Trade PAYX now with TOP MARKET NEWS

(RTTNews) – Thursday, Paychex Inc. (PAYX: News ) said it agreed to acquire privately-held payroll services company SurePayroll, Inc, for about $115 million. The acquisition is expected to pave the way for Paychex to expand into Software-as-a-service market for small businesses.

SurePayroll’s revenue for the calendar year 2010 is expected to be around $23 million. Paychex does not anticipate the acquisition to have a material impact to its revenue or earnings for the fiscal year ending May 31, 2011.

The merger consideration payable to SurePayroll of about $115.0 million is subject to certain adjustments including the cash and working capital position of SurePayroll at the effective time of the merger. Paychex said it intends to fund the acquisition from its available cash.

The staffing service provider said the deal is expected to close by the end of 2010 and is subject to regulatory review and other closing conditions.

Upon closing of the acquisition, SurePayroll will be operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Paychex, with SurePayroll President Michael Alter being retained in that position, Paychex said in a statement.

SurePayroll, founded in 2000, provides Software-as-a-service payroll processing, and serves about 30,000 small businesses. Apart from marketing its SaaS-based products to small businesses, SurePayroll has a leading position with a variety of channel partners, including some of the leading banking institutions, such as Citibank, Harris Bank, and SunTrust Bank.

New York based Paychex said the acquisition would help provide small firms access to SaaS-basaed technology that enables customers to process payroll using a web browser of iPhone application. Paychex also sees huge opportunities in online solutions segment, as small businesses in U.S. still continue to do their payroll manually.

PAYX is trading at $30.22, down $0.30 or 0.97%, on the Nasdaq.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ron May here. Here is some of what I wrote on 6/8/2007 in Briefly noted based on the talk at the ITA given by Troy Henikoff and Michael Alter and moderated by David Smith, by Ron May
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Look, while I love digressions, and the new world is given too little attention here, I did feel that the SurePayroll story was a good one. So, let me give you a quickie overview of some of the things that Troy and Michael said.

Overview: The company was founded in 1999, I believe, and it received $17MM in venture capital funding from local VCs like Kettle and Blue Star Ventures. I have a note below from Pat Pollard whom I fired off an email to about them. The funding was a tortuous path because just as they were making the rounds on Sand Hill Road, the bubble burst. It was very interesting to hear how the whole atmosphere for investing changed on a dime in 2000.

Here is Pat Pollard’s note to me:

++++++++++++++++++++

From: Pat Pollard [Pat@bluestarventures.com]
To: ron@themayreport.com
Subject: spam: RE: I know you have not cashed out yet, but Sure Payroll has to be a winner for you. 90 employees, 18,000 customers, $3.5B payroll.
Sent: Thu 6/7/2007 11:14 AM

Ron,

Nice to hear from you. I hope your health issues are under control enough for you to enjoy the summer a bit.

Surepayroll has been a very good investment for us and, while none of us has realized value from it to date, it looks to be a winner that continues to grow in value. Michael Alter and his team have done a great job of building the company and its capabilities while generating higher than projected profitability.

Like the guy from the hair club for men, I’m not just an investor but I’m also a very satisfied customer. A number of our companies are customers of Surepayroll and I can say first hand they do a great job at a great price.

Take care,

Pat

Patrick J. Pollard
Managing Director
BlueStar Ventures
200 W. Madison St. 37th Floor
Chicago, IL 60558
p: (312)384-5010
f: (312) 384-5005
pat@bluestarventures.com
www.bluestarventures.com

—–Original Message—–
From: Ron May [mailto:ron@themayreport.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 10:58 PM
To: Pat Pollard
Subject: I know you have not cashed out yet, but Sure Payroll has to be a winner for you. 90 employees, 18,000 customers, $3.5B payroll.

Ronald May
ron@themayreport.com
773-525-3944

+++++++++++++++++++++

I am not going to give you the blow by blow because it would take all day, but here are three or four interesting things.

One, when they were talking to the VCs, they fu**ed up. They happened to mention a possible customer and channel partner, Wells Fargo. That casual, almost bragging, and certainly premature chit chat cost them big time. They did not have Wells Fargo as a customer yet and were just mentioning the possibility, but what happened as soon as they threw out the name was that the funding was tied to it. In hindsight, Troy said, that they should not have disclosed the Wells Fargo deal to the VCs before it happened. And the advice to any entrepreneur is to not flap your trap about possible customers because it can backfire on you. That little name drop cost them about six months before they did eventually get the funding.

Second, the Wells Fargo deal was a double edge. On the one hand, WF became a channel partner, but on the other hand, SurePayroll had to comply with Wells Fargo’s security requirements and that cost them valuable funds, like $500K, that they would have preferred to spend on customer acquisition. I was walking in and out and don’t have time right now to go over the tape, but I did hear them say that the cost of customer acquisition was something like $400. That was at the start, it turns out, when they were using direct mail to get customers. But remember that this is an annuity model which means that you have the customer for a long time. The attrition rate was 10-12% they said, which is a relatively low rate because ADP is 20-22%.

But Wells Fargo has a huge sales force that has been employed to help get customers for SurePayroll and all in all, it has been a good relationship, they said.

By the way, SurePayroll’s main competitors are ADP and Paychex. SurePayroll was the first online payroll and they are the largest strictly online payroll provider and they say they are #5 overall in the payroll provision industry according to Gary Swartwood of SurePayroll whom I called this morning to check a few facts. One of SurePayroll’s competitors was there but it was made clear that they were just sort of a competitor because I don’t believe the owner of that business even believes in the internet. That could have been Paychex but don’t hold me to that.

They were doing direct mail to get customers and that was expensive at $400 per customer acquired. But then they went with the channel approach and with direct partners and they used online marketing.

A few other things about SurePayroll. They have 95 employees and process payrolls totaling $3.5B. They have 18,000 customers and they are all small businesses, 80% of their customers have 9 or fewer employees. Michael Alter says that their customer distribution follows the national averages for small businesses. Of all firms under 100 employees, 80% have 9 or fewer employees. They have all their business inside the U.S. and they have over 4,000 taxing jurisdictions, I believe Troy said.

In doing payroll, you can’t be off by even a penny or the complaints will fly, they said. Payroll is a very emotive thing for employees and when things are not right, they get very upset. They have not moved into specific industry sectors such as construction or sales, but they have added services that help employers with things like compliance with laws on postings in the workplace for employees, etc.

One question from the audience, in this case from Fred Hoch, elicited some interesting information. Fred asked about customer service and what they said was that they did not focus as heavily on customer service at first as they did not taking customer issues and using them to develop better software, so their response to a customer problem was to fix the problem by way of the technology. They did say that their customer service was not as good as it could have been because it would have cost them much more to expand that area.

Essentially, they used the customer call center as a kind of science lab for the technology team to add features to the product. They could not scale if they had to add people so they had 3 minute holding times but that situation is vastly improved. They now answer 90% of the calls in 20 seconds or less and three rings.

Initially, they had funding of $1MM plus from the 3 founders and I believe some angels. By the end of 2000, they were having some trouble financially. They had 23 people squeezed into 1,800 square feet. And the seed capital had been cut in half.

They did not get the VC funding until January of 2001 and that process was delayed by the downturn in the market and the whole Wells Fargo thing. The conversations with the VCs that funded them started in July 2000, I think they said.

Someone in the audience also asked about the use of Jellyvision’s automated and interactive voice customer service and they said that they used it but that it took too long and was somewhat cumbersome, so they stopped using it. But recall that Troy Henikoff came out of Jellyvision and his old colleague Harry Gottlieb was there.

One name I did recognize was that of Ken Gaebler, who has a marketing/communications firm called Walker Sands: www.walkersands.com/Comm_People_KenGaebler.htm

I gathered that SurePayroll uses Ken’s firm and is happy with it.
____________________________________
PayChex financials and management

Subject: Ron says I’m not as dumb as I look, LOL!
Date: 12/12/2010 4:50:17 P.M. Central Standard Time
From: melanie_adcock@msn.com
To: ron@themayreport.com, ronaldmay@aol.com

I use this a lot for research on companies and Ron suggested I share it:

Go to Google.com, click Advanced Search which you will see to the right of the big word Google in much smaller blue letters. Once in the Advanced Search section, put a domain name such as hoovers.com, linkedin.com or sites to various magazines or journals, put in your key phrases and the information you are seeking from that site should come up. Today I did an advanced search under the hoovers.com website with the keyword search Paychex to find the links to their financial information. The options are endless with this feature. Many people I’m sure already know this but for those that don’t check it out. It’s really cool.

-Melanie
_____________________
May here. Thanks Melanie for digging up the info. on Paychex. So we have Phil Tadros alerting me to the info. about the sale; Chris Cleveland who is a loyal SurePayroll customer telling me about the chairman of Paychex, B. Thomas Golisano, and Melanie digging up the Hoover’s info. (which was founded by Patrick Spain along with others).
_______________________
Subject: Links to Paychex company information
Date: 12/12/2010 4:38:27 P.M. Central Standard Time
From: melanie_adcock@msn.com
To: ron@themayreport.com, ronaldmay@aol.com

Link to Paychex General Company Overview on Hoovers.com

www.hoovers.com/company/Paychex_Inc/rcyxxi-1.html

Link to Paychex Key Financials on Hoover.com

www.hoovers.com/company/Paychex_Inc/rcyxxi-1-1njea5.html

__________________________
Paychex Executives

Chairman
B. Thomas Golisano

President, CEO, and Director
Martin Mucci

SVP, CFO, and Secretary
John Morphy

According to Wikipedia… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Golisano

Blase Thomas Golisano (born 1942) is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder of Paychex, the second-largest payroll processor in the United States and co-owner (along with real estate developer Larry Quinn) of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team and of the Buffalo Bandits lacrosse team. Golisano has an associate’s degree from Alfred State College.
He is a founding member of the Independence Party of New York, and ran for governor of New York in 1994, 1998 and 2002 on its ticket. Although he lost each time, he increased his percentage of the vote. He spent a combined $93 million on the three campaigns.[1] In 2002, Golisano challenged New York Governor George Pataki as the candidate of the Independence Party. By receiving more than 50,000 votes each time, Golisano brought the Independence Party an automatic ballot line for the succeeding four years. There was speculation that he would run for governor on the Republican ticket, but he announced on May 15, 2009 that he was moving to Florida to escape New York state taxes.[2]

Charity
Golisano has become a major philanthropist, founding the B. Thomas Golisano Foundation in 1985, which awards grants to organizations dedicated to providing opportunities for those with disabilities and offering support to their families.[3] Golisano has donated over 6% of his net worth ($1.3 billion) to charity. He has made major donations to fund health care and leading educational centers. He donated $14 million in February 2001 to the Rochester Institute of Technology to fund the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. Golisano donated $14 million to the University of Rochester, which re-named their pediatric facility at Strong Memorial Hospital in his honor as the Golisano Children’s Hospital in 2002. In October 2003, Golisano donated $5 million to Nazareth College, which named the new Golisano Academic Center in his honor. On March 6, 2006, Golisano donated $6 million to Bishop Kearney High School and Our Lady of Mercy High School[disambiguation needed]. In September 2007, with a $10 million donation, Golisano launched the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at the Rochester Institute of Technology. On October 8, 2008, Golisano donated $10 million to Niagara University for a new Center for Integrated Science building that will be named in his honor. On the list of contributors to the Clinton Foundation, which the foundation released in December 2008 as part of an arrangement with the Obama Administration, Golisano is listed as having given between $10 million and $25 million.[4] In November 2009, Golisano donated $4 million to Ave Maria University for the construction of a new field house.[5]
[edit]
Political involvement
After New York’s Republican Governor George Pataki announced he would not run again in the 2006 elections, GOP officials attempted to recruit Golisano to run for the Republican nomination. Golisano changed his party affiliation to the GOP (with the Independence Party’s chairman’s blessing) in October 2005, apparently in preparation for another gubernatorial run. However, on February 1, 2006, Golisano announced that he would not run for the governorship.[6]
In August 2008, Golisano contributed $1 million to the Democratic National Convention.[7]
In July 2008, Golisano formed a PAC called Responsible New York. He funded it with $5 million of his own money. The PAC gives money to candidates for the New York state legislature, regardless of party. The PAC is aiming to support candidates in favor of property tax cuts and election reform.[8]
In October 2008, Golisano voiced his opinion in favor of term limits for public offices in the City of New York. Golisano has vowed to fight Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to extend term limits, arguing that the people of New York city have voted twice in favor of the current law.[9]
In June 2009, Golisano took partial credit for the Republican seizure of control in the 2009 New York State Senate leadership crisis. Golisano, who had supported a number of Democratic Party candidates during the 2008 election, was dissatisfied with, among other things, the Democratic plan to solve the state’s budget crisis by raising taxes on New York’s wealthiest residents. He orchestrated the defection of Democratic senators Pedro Espada Jr. and Hiram Monserrate, who voted with Republicans to reinstall Dean Skelos as majority leader.[10]

Link to Tom Golisano’s website www.golisano.com/

According to Hoover’s.com
Top Paychex, Inc. Competitors
Administaff, Inc.
Automatic Data Processing, Inc.
TriNet Group, Inc.

Competitive Landscape for Paychex, Inc.
Demand is driven largely by the construction needs of companies and governments and the desire of industrial customers to improve the efficiency of operations. Profitability depends on the ability to accurately predict costs for a project. Small firms, which can effectively compete with larger ones by having expertise in a particular field, are often hired as consultants on larger projects if they have special expertise. Large firms are advantaged in designing and managing large projects.

Paychex Company Description
If Johnny Paycheck had founded Paychex, his song might have been, “Take This Job and … Let Us Do Your Payroll.” The company processes the payrolls of about 535,000 clients, making it the second-largest payroll accounting firm in the US after Automatic Data Processing. Paychex also provides automatic tax payment, direct deposit, and wage garnishment processing. Its Paychex Business Solutions (a professional employer organization) offers such services as 401(k) record-keeping, risk management, benefits administration, and group insurance management. Established in 1971, Paychex focuses on small and midsized businesses (ones with fewer than 100 employees) and owns more than 100 offices worldwide.

Paychex, Inc. Income Statement
All amounts in millions of US Dollars except per share amounts.

May 10
May 09
May 08
Revenue
2,000.8
2,082.8
2,066.3
Cost of Goods Sold
653.6
680.5
660.7
Gross Profit
1,347.2
1,402.2
1,405.6
Gross Profit Margin
67.3%
67.3%
68%
SG&A Expense
622.4
597.0
577.3
Depreciation & Amortization
86.4
108.7
99.6
Operating Income
724.8
805.2
828.3
Operating Margin
36.2%
38.7%
40.1%
Nonoperating Income
4.5
6.9
26.5
Nonoperating Expenses
55.0
75.5
–
Income Before Taxes
729.3
812.1
854.8
Income Taxes
252.3
278.5
278.7
Net Income After Taxes
477.0
533.5
576.1
Continuing Operations
477.0
533.5
576.1
Discontinued Operations
–
–
–
Total Operations
477.0
533.5
576.1
Total Net Income
477.0
533.5
576.1
Net Profit Margin
23.8%
25.6%
27.9%
Diluted EPS from Total Net Income
1.32
1.48
1.56
Dividends per Share
1.24
1.24
1.20
_______________________
Briefly noted, by Ron May

* First a correction. It is David Snoble at PMMG, not David Snobel as I wrote.

* At The Bagel on Saturday I ran into Ed Bowe who has a product called Hasa Homes, www.hasahomes.com which is being used in Haiti. He says he recognized me from ITA meetings. Must be a long long time ago.

* I attended Tech The Halls held at Noble Tree Saturday night. The RSVPs were 325 but the actual attendance was 170. On a cold wintry night, not bad. I sat in the front room on the first floor the whole time and got people as they came and went. Few people escaped my call for cards and I had a handy dandy envelope (really three envelopes) for people to write down their names and email addresses and URLs.

The organizers bought enough alcohol for 300 and there was plenty left over. Jelly Chicago was one of the organizers and they meet at Noble Tree on two afternoons a week very informally. It is more of a hangout place, and not a formal meeting per se. I believe that this is where Phil Tadros met his lead developer for Doejo, Darren Marshall.

Another organizer was Alexis Finch from TYK or www.thoughtyouknew.com which is a play on the way we speak along the lines of Who’s On First? I got the gag after a few repeats just as Matt Lauer finally caught on to Andrew Mason’s gag (or dodge) after about 45 seconds of valuable national TV time.

Some of the people there that I knew were:

Chris Cleveland of DieselPoint (www.dieselpoint.com) who tells me he will have some big news to report in about a month.

Nural Eusufzai

Andy Angelos

Tim Courtney — and guess what, John R. Dallas, Jr. was nowhere in sight!

Sean Corbett is still part of Tech Stars and may now be the only firm left in Chicago in that mentoring and financing program — some people call it a venture accelerator. Two other firms, The Next Big Sound out of NU and ReTel Technologies out of the University of Chicago, have left Chicago, one for Boulder, CO and one for Silicon Valley, if we have that right. Sean’s business is called www.havemyshift.com. To see who else is running the firm, check this out: havemyshift.com/about_us

Phil Tadros who told me that they are launching something on the cartoon network and he mentioned something about Homeless Cop and a billboard. BTW, Phil and one other guy standing there advised me that keeping the old articles on the current site and also on the new site is asking for trouble with Google which discourages duplicate sites and penalizes such moves. BTW, again, I heard recently on the news that some guy deliberately ticks off his customers because customer complaints help raise his Google rankings. Google heard about this and has changed their algorithms.

I sent a bunch of emails today to people asking them about things we discussed last night and this just came in from Tadros. I already sent out the test mailing before I saw it.

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Phil, what’s the Homeless Cop thing, the billboard, the Cartoon Network, etc.?
Date: 12/12/2010 6:20:43 P.M. Central Standard Time
From: phil@doejo.com
To: RONALDMAY@aol.com

Google Homeless Cop on YouTube

Turner has signed us for 11 “bumps” on cartoon network adult swim and
we designed the national holiday billboard and street art ads. We are
almost finished with writing episode one. But the bumps commercials
you can call it are on air now.

On Sunday, December 12, 2010, wrote:
>
>

–
Philip Tadros
708.655.6753

doejo.com

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Tadros

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bruce Montgomery has been MIA for a while. He was out of town and busy with other things. He will be at the MIT-EF Holiday party on Tuesday. He told me that the idea for Groupon comes right out of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. We also talked about the Mayor’s race but more on that later.

Ziad who tells me he’s “keeping it real.”

Brendan Tripp

Brian Mayer of midVentures is very excited about their upcoming event on Thursday, the 16th, at The Sync.

Dan Krol who has a debate site, www.argumentclinicnet ,and was one of the founders of www.ronmayfacts.com

Jack Eisenberg is doing well, still knows everyone in town, and told me he took one of my suggestions from his talk at Tech Pitch which was to focus on one market or on a more defined market. His business, www.mapding.com, is partly a location based eBay, but it also has other features which are promising. The original motivation was to sell something quickly.
++++++++++++++++
Mapding is the result of two dillemas: being a Cubs fan and trying to get rid of some tickets at the last minute. There’s yet to be an app for the Cubs winning the world series, and there wasn’t an app for selling something quickly using location.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jack, dillemas is spelled dilemmas.

Michael Blaine who has now driven me home, has driven Melanie home, and last night who helped me down the stairs to a cab at Noble Tree after 3am. His business is QR codes, which are essentially like bar codes for targeted local advertising. www.chicagofast.com/HOW

Mike McCune who does network administration for NRI Labs

Seth Kravitz

Patty Huber whom I met at Social Media Club Chicago in June and reported in TMR on 6/29/2010. She knew Tyler Mason but did not realize he was Andrew’s brother.

Other people I met or whose email addresses I got (by having them write it down on three envelopes I had) included:

Tina Chan
Claire Lanes
Shahzad Ahsher
Eric Marden
Rachel Ash
A woman named Michelle who was with Tyler Mason and who knows Paul May so I showed them Snapfish pics of my nieces and my brother and sister-in-law Trish and my mom from when she visited Chicago and we went to the Rain Forest Cafe.

Katie Russo wrote her name but no email address and she wrote: “Looking fabulous” Katie, that is my job! And she put a little heart above the “i” in her name.

Glancee (spelling?), being founded by three Italian guys who are keeping it in stealth mode. One of them is named Andrea and the other two have names I don’t know. Andrea was very interested in knowing about Anna. I told him he could find her in the men’s department at Burberry’s on Sunday afternoon where she is doing holiday seasonal work and he said his coat cost him $500 there. He should talk to Anna because she gets a 40% discount. I think he wants more than that discount. The Italian guys (and I don’t mean Italian like Julian Pretto — these guys are actually from Italy) know Jack Eisenberg who is the person who told me to talk to them and they told me that they would let me know first when they have something to announce.

BTW, Bruce Montgomery was chatting with Anna and he was surprised to learn that the scarf his mom bought him probably cost her $350.

eric@blueprintds.com is the head of the firm, I believe and his last name is Barker
emarden@blueprintds.com also first name Eric.
thomas.do@blueprintds.com
rachelash@ashbluewebdesign.com or
ash@ashbluewebdesign.com
shahzad@uchicago.edu

tyler.mason375@gmail.com and Tyler is in Jelly Chicago as well. He is Andrew’s younger brother and we had an interesting conversation that covered a lot of ground from the family business in doll houses (he could have been putting me on) to Julian Assange and the Espionage Act of 1917. No publication has ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act but in WWII, when the Chicago Tribune under Colonel McCormick published that the U. S. had broken the Japanese code, the Roosevelt administration considered prosecution, but decided against it since the Japanese from what they could tell did not read the Chicago Tribune so there was no point in alerting them to it. Andrew strikes me as a quirky liberal arts guy who studied music and public policy and Tyler strikes me as more of a techie, but what can one know from a brief encounter?

His friend Michelle (I never got the last name) insisted on giving me the third degree interrogation — why I am so nosey and have no cards, etc. — until she asked me if I knew Paul May and we had s good laugh over the fact that she knew Paul but not me and I knew Andrew Mason but not Tyler.

patty@thepoint.com and that is Patty Huber who tells me she is doing community management for Groupon and she told me she was roughly employee #300 and that was back in June — eons ago in Groupon time.

brossjames@gmail.com is Brandon James. He will be sending us updates on bike trip across Turkey and into Armenia. He was just leaving for O’Hare to go to Istanbul when I saw him. He was also looking for his key to his bike which had fallen off of his neck chain. We look forward to his daily one minute video updates on his trip.

mark@spothero.com and www.spothero.com. That is Mark Laurence and the site has something to do with parking, but the site has not been launched when I took a peek at it.

tim@devbridge.com

rudolph.ariel@gmail.com It is -pronounced R-E-L, not Air –ee –el. He is a game developer at Sears Holdings. What on earth does Sears Holdings have to do with game development?

st250@yahoo.com

m-slater@northwestern.edu for Mike Slater who is a grad student at NU in English lit and he’s writing his dissertation on how the Renaissance period literary figures had an influence on the scientific revolution of the time (Donne, Milton, Shakespeare, etc.) and vice versa.

hurlont@gmail.com, first name Tyler, I believe.
schultz.hailey@gmail.com is a web developer and graphic designer.
ksugar@sugargamers.com, and Keisha is a game developer?
a_jeremyscott@yahoo.com
c.lauf@gmail.com
garrett@doejo.com
vvkbhgn@gmail.com
stephen.bolter@gmail.com
claire@aol.com
jsiarto@gmail.com Jeff is one of the founders of Jelly Chicago and he is a partner at www.loudpixel.com and his wife Allie was also there sand I believe she is also with LoudPixel.
sean@corbett.com

patrick.alltencin@yahoo.com and Patrick Miller wrote down a bunch of stuff I cannot decipher. I think I can make out “Dissecting the Ocho” and “Wrap your tool” along with a web site www.poshsecurity.wordpress.com, or www.pushsecurity.wordpress.com or what???

Here it is! I entered Patrick Miller Dissecting the Ocho into Google and it is pvinsanity.wordpress.com/

alex@hothtactical.com, and Alex is head of www.thehoth.com which has been operating since August and has 400 clients already. Look, it was almost 3am and the place had all but cleared out and I hope I have that right. I sent Alex an email and he said the clients are paying. They provide outsource link building.
Never Build Links Again!
Outsourced SEO Link Building
Backed by 300+ Campaigns
US Based, Professional Support
100% Money-Back Guarantee

Someone wrote down on one of my envelopes www.fineartamerica.com. It might have been Vivek Bamogona at vvkbhgn@gmail.com.

One woman was honest. She was there for the free drinks. But where were three men I admire most, Willinger, Dalka and Dever — aka the biggest moochers I know?

One of the Doejo guys, possibly Garrett, who has obviously drunk the Tadros Kool-Aid told me: “Phil Tadros is the best lead generation source for any company you’ll ever meet.” Chris Cleveland agreed. There does seem to be a cult like following for Phil and I still can’t figure it out. And it’s not just women who are drawn to him. He seems to have that Je ne sais quoi. wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_translation_of_‘Je_ne_sais_quoi’

Tyler Mason, Andrew’s younger brother, says that “Charlie Rose was Andrew’s best interview. He opened up more than he had in the past.” But he did not talk about a deal with Google, Tyler said.
Thanks to reader Dave McMurray for this link but I don’t know if you can view the interview here:

www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11338

Here is an interesting story. I took Anna down to Noble Tree with me because of the icy weather and I did not want to fall. In the cab on the way there, she told me that she met a famous person but she didn’t know he was famous until a week later. It turns out that it was Michael Shamberg, the producer of such notable films as Pulp Fiction, A Fish Called Wanda, Gattaca and Erin Brockovich.

So, here is the interesting part. Why didn’t Anna know this about him when she met him?

The group that Shamberg was involved in founding in 1971 described below in Wikipedia was a product of the 1960s counter culture.

The people in that group which met here recently are ticked at Michael Shamberg for “selling out,” which just means he chose to make money, Anna told me.

That’s why he does not mention his financial success and nor does anyone else. There is conspiracy of silence surrounding his success and no one even mentions the films he has produced, as though he has committed heresy.

Melanie tells me that this is a common attitude in the art world as well.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shamberg

Michael Shamberg
Born 1945
Chicago, Illinois
Michael Shamberg (born 1945)[1] is an American former Time-Life correspondent and current film producer.

[edit] Biography
His credits include Erin Brockovich, A Fish Called Wanda, Garden State, Gattaca and Pulp Fiction. His production companies include Jersey Films, with Stacey Sher and Danny DeVito, and Double Feature Films, with his wife, Carla Santos Shamberg.

In the 1960s and 1970s, counter-culture video collectives extended the role of the underground press to new communication technologies. In 1972, Shamberg co-founded a video collective called Raindance Corporation, which later became TVTV, or Top Value Television. The collective believed new technology could effect social change.

Shamberg preferred the term Guerrilla television (the title of his 1971 book), because despite its strategies and tactics similar to warfare, Guerrilla television is non-violent. He saw Guerrilla television as a means to break through the barriers imposed by Broadcast television, which he called beast television.
++++++++++++++++++++++++

Enough for today. If you gave me your card, your info. will be printed when Anna types them up. And this week, Melanie will get me the cards she has collected.

BTW, Melanie attended Phil Berman’s 50th birthday party in Evanston complete with childhood friends and a band. Congratulations, Phil. You will find that life after 50 can be pretty good. Two guys from Sole Search, DJ Grant and Brandon Williamson, were the only two tech guys that Melanie knew there.

Finally, I just realized when I entered today’s date that 21 years ago today Fred May died. He was dad to Jeannie, Paul, Dave and me; and husband of 38 years to Harriet, brother to Rita, son to Gertrude, uncle to Richard, Ken, and Ellen and Barbara (Rachel) and Cliff, professor to many students and many other things. We do miss him and the acorn has not fallen far from the tree.

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END OF REPORT