The May Report: 6/24/2011: Some scoops to tell your mother: Ed Suda and Avelo Roy get an up round from Sandbox or at least they are close to closing it; Evan Herman finally ends a long job search by working for executive search firm MarengoHampshire; Dan Salcedo leaves SingleHop to start his own firm; Vysky Energy raises $14MM in angel money for a wind farm in Galena (?), where turbines run a cool $2MM each; Samantha Borland will have a big announcement in two weeks; Mike Rhodes who had been imbibing? shows up at Built in Chicago; Geoff Domaracki touts next month’s Tech Week with 200 events; Phil Tadros, are you 14 years old today?; Matt Moog’s wife said she met me at The Bagel and asked when I’m going to retire: Never is the answer, I’ll die in the job since I love it so much, but Jean Pickering told me that Ed Domain and I like each other so much because we’re so much alike; Biofuels and the mob; Long time no see: Mark Achler, Mark Glennon, Sam Borland w/o pearls, Dave Lundy, Hank Adams and a few others

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:

– Briefly noted, by Ron May
– An interesting note from a new reader which shows all you PR and marketing folks how important branding is and how easy it is to muck it up
– Wednesday, June 29: BigFrontier cage match: Once in a lifetime Marketing Cage Match featuring Aggressive Aaron Strout (for Bob Pearson: Pre-Commerce) and Raging Rick Mathieson (On Demand Brand)
– Stelios Valavanis: The guy from OnShore who went to Intelligentsia
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The Scoop section:

Briefly noted, by Ron May

Let me make this quick.

I attended not one, but two events, yesterday and I got a lot of “little” scoops.

The first event, held in the offices of Mayer Brown at 71 S. Wacker, The Hyatt Center, was attended by about 250 to 300 people. The panel started at 4pm and more people kept filtering in so by the time the panel ended and the reception began, I’d say that they really had about 300.

By and large, that was a button down crowd, and I saw mostly suits and ties. Even Ron Kirschner was wearing a suit and tie, but his sidekick, Konstantin Kostov had no jacket or tie and David Culver never dresses up from what I recall.

The people who went to the Clean Energy Alliance (www.cleanenergyalliance.org) that I knew and could pick out of a police lineup were: Bruce Montgomery, David Culver, Michael Gruber who also does not dress up and is never clean shaven, David Flint, Ron Kirschner, Konstantin Kostov, Darrin Stern (one of the three organizers), Dave Lundy who I have not seen in years and who is still doing his PR thing but also, he is tied into the energy biz; Daniel Fodor, also one of the organizers who has that Taxi Share app; Joe Zlotnicki, Evan Herman, Paul Davidovich who is in bad condition now for four or five months he told me as he is using an umbrella as a cane and he did say he will have to have surgery, I think on his back; Ray Willis, Jeff Grossberg who is doing some interesting stuff with a virtual office that has not been announced yet, www.greenworldalliance.org and www.greenworldportal.com; Kent Vincent who is always around and I never know what he actually does — a common problem in this town; Steve Ryzner, another consultant who does things I don’t know about; Jean Pickering who is showing up in places I am not used to seeing here and she did tell me some interesting info. about Mike Rhodes that I did not know; and I am drawing a blank on who else was there that I knew. Oh, it just hit me. Mark Menarik was there and he has moved into the nanotech field with graphenes, I believe he said. Here’s his URL on his card, www.xgsciences.com. It says xGnP and reads Graphene Nanoplatelets and other Multifunctional Materials. And Tom Weiser was there. He used to work for Divine and SAP. There was a guy who lives in Orland Park and knows my brother but I can never recall his name. That would make for an interesting article. All the people who are IT refugees so to speak who have moved into energy or nanotech. Neil Kane is one. Sean Murdoch in some ways is another, and there are many others.

There were a lot of lawyers, a lot of energy consultants, and some start-up firms, not many as far as I could tell. There were four or five people from Invenergy (www.invenergyllc.com) hanging around at the end doing networking mostly with themselves.

There were some entrepreneurs but my casual observation is that any start-up in the energy field is expensive. I talked to a gorgeous tall blonde Lithuanian chick whose name I don’t recall since I was too busy looking at her legs, and her business partner Vitalijus Kaleinikovas about their wind farm in Galena, IL, I believe they said. They have seven turbines at a cost of $2MM per turbine and the company is called Vysky Energy. They have raised $14MM from four investors, they told me. At $2MM a turbine, it can be expensive to start a wind farm, and we have not even addressed the big issue of transmission yet.

Transmission and distribution is “the bastard step child of de-regulation,” one consultant told me, referring to electricity deregulation under President Reagan. He said that prior to deregulation, power firms had to do their own transmission.

One issue that came up quite a bit in the panel was siting. That is essentially how transmission lines can go through various states and areas in many ways analogous to the issues faced in putting down gas pipelines. In the pre deregulation days, the power firms had more clout, on the verge of emminant (spelling?)domain powers, he told me.

If you want to run by transmission line from North Dakota where the winds are strong to Alabama, you have to go through Illinois and that means getting permission from a lot of people and plenty of permits. As the guy who was there from the Illinois Chamber of Commerce told me and this is a bit of a digression, firms are leaving Illinois by the droves and taxes have a lot to do with that, but the problems in Illinois and transmission rights are not unique to Illinois. My info. is that Boone Pickens ran into problems getting lines from one part of Texas to another.

Another firm there which had a whole contingent at the event was www.nordex-online.com and they are Chicago based, I believe.

One guy told me that his firm, Iberdola Renewables, is the biggest renewable energy firm in the world. I am not sure if they have a website, but his card says iberdolausa.com.

Look, let me get this out but two things about the panel discussion which sadly did not include questions from the audience, but nonetheless, I learned a lot. I just see that Peter Falk died at 83. How sad, Columbo. Excuse me sir, I have just one more question.

First, the map of where wind energy is strong is the inverse of the map showing where transmission lines are strongest. Wind is strongest in the midwest plains states almost in a straight line from Texas to North Dakota. East of Illinois, forget about it.

Transmission lines are strongest on either side of the wind corridor, west or east, but not in the middle.

That leads to the next point. How to get wind energy from a place like Iowa to eastern Illinois? But before we get to that point, we need to say that the wind in Iowa and in Illinois is weakly correlated as one panelist pointed out.

The correlation is .3, he said, based on studies and many years of dealing with the issues. If it were 1.0, there would be the same wind activity in both places. If it were -1.0, there would be exact opposite wind activity. But at .3, there is a weak correlation and that means opportunity for a wind exchange and collaboration between the regions on wind. In financial terms, there is room for arbs due to market inefficiencies.

The panelists did stress DC and AC with storage. They said that costs are still pretty high and if I heard right which I probably did not, $50 per kw hour or is that mw hour? Do I have this right? The figure $30 and $20 was quoted and the two were added together.

But the big take away for me was the siting problem and just dealing with FERC and the courts and the 7th Circuit or the 4th Circuit, etc. It’s a regulator’s and lawyer’s delight but it slows things down considerably. And at one point a panelist asked if there is a 16% reliability problem in New Jersey, why should Illinois consumers be paying for that? Did I hear that right?

I did hear something interesting on the qt. In the biofuels biz, if you produce more than a million gallons, you’ll get a visit from the mob and that comes from a Loyola professor who teaches this stuff. They use stills and that field involves turning grease into diesel fuel.

It was 7:15pm when David Flint wheeled me downstairs and I got a cab. My first instinct was to skip the Built in Chicago event since it was scheduled to end at 8pm and I had not been able to register and Matt Moog had not returned my call to him from 8:25am and Maria Katris, the official organizer, had ties to TiE-Midwest and I have nothing but problems with being invited to their meetings and Jean Pickering had told me that if I was not registered, I would not be allowed in, so I did not want problems. But as it turned out, a Chicago policeman took me to the elevator at the Mart so that I could get to the elevator and when I got to 19, right away in the hallway, people were leaving and naturally, I was asking for cards.

I am very glad that I went. First of all, a woman from Tribeca came out and asked me not to block traffic and she told me the event was ending. It was about ten to eight at that point.

She wheeled me, reluctantly I suspect, to the elevator area again, and there I sat until I left. I asked her to have Matt Moog come out and talk to me. And guess what, viola, a minute or two later, Matt appeared. We had a good conversation. He was most gracious. And he did interference for me so that when I told people, oh I mean asked people, to “gimme your card” even though I was being polite and not demanding by Ron May standards, a lot of these people did not know me and Matt politely insisted that I first introduce myself so the intro. went along these lines, “Hi, I’m Ron May and can I get your card?” I was in a wheelchair and sitting at least 15 to 20 feet away from the people I was calling out to, so I hope I seemed to be harmless but some of us know better. Matt did get my message but late in the day and earlier in the day he was at the doctor’s office, he told me.

Evan Herman knows I am not always harmless. Evan Herman who has just taken a job with Hampshire Marengo Partners, an executive search firm. Evan was one of the few who went to both events. At the Clean Energy Alliance I found out about his new job and threatened to go home and put out a bulletin about it. His new boss, Andrea Moran from Marengo, was at the Built in Chicago event.

There was no “plot” here to keep me out. There were fire department restrictions which is why the number of people was cut off at 250 or so. By the time I got there, Howard Tullman had left, but my sense from the signs in the building was that the event was held at the offices of Flash Point Academy or as it is called officially these days, TFA, for Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy.

So, in the one hour I was there, what did I find out and I’ll include things I found out at the Clean Energy Alliance and then I will give you some things from the SAB Poker Charity on Saturday in Glenview.

Let me start with some of the people I saw there.

Bob Geras and brown noser-in-chief for Geras, Neil Kane of Advanced Diamond Technologies who is now one of the longest serving CEOs for a firm that is not making money, but is still plugging along and also doing interesting things from a technology point of view; Nik Rokop, the other top Geras brown noser but less so these days since he has a real job at Knapp at IIT — and Nik left long before Bob and Neil came out together; Scott Glickson and he does not run into me very often (the last time I think I saw Scott was at the Robert Jordan How they did it book launch event in September) and he made the mad dash for the elevator; and here is another old timer you don’t see out much, Mark Achler; Hank Adams, George Deeb, Mark Glennon, Kevin Willer and it would appear much of his staff at the CEC but some of these people are new and I do not know them yet (Willer and I will meet at somewhere like The Bagel and we will not mention the unmentionable name and we’ll talk about what he is doing and how he has changed the culture at the CEC — he made it clear to me that meeting in his office was not necessary or useful because he is out meeting entrepreneurs,) and I did find out just as I left that the CEC held a meeting Thursday morning at the House of Blues for firms interested in doing business in Chicago. It was not the two guys in a garage start-up crowd, but rather for established businesses. It is not necessary for me to gush about Kevin Willer. It is manifestly obvious that a guy who comes out of business and who was employee #185 at Google with an email address simply of kevin@google.com and who gets that it is about the entrepreneurs and not about ego or empire building or self-aggrandizement or legacy and bureaucracy building or controlling resources for the benefit of a privileged clique is a breath of fresh air in this town.

Others who were there included of course Matt Moog and his wife and one guy said he was Matt’s cousin; Tim Curley, Nancy Munro, Collin Canright and his wife (and my girlfriend) Christina (she and I have now spent time in two hotels together, the Drake on April 28th and the Hilton on June 1st); Dan Lyne from World Business Chicago and there were other WBC people I think, Howard Diamond from Rise Time (Jon Morris’ firm,) Mike Rhodes who was having fun in a t-shirt and also who seemed to me to be in party mode more than ever — Mike, how much had you been drinking? Mike did confirm what Pickering told me which is that he was dumped by three partners and that list does not include Mike Sandner and Chris Casey. “That’s a long story for another day,” he said. Mike, we’re a long way from the end of February when you emphatically told me “The Sync is not closing, it is just moving.” Mike Chicken Little said, The sky is falling. Where is The Sync, Mike? I, for one, miss it.

The event had some of the social media crowd as well like Brendan Tripp, Judi Wunderlich who said she loves TMR, and there were a few faces I have not seen in ages like Samantha Borland who has lost her pearls and is now wearing a necklace with the names of her three kids on it — for those who don’t know or who have forgotten, Sam as she’s called started a dot com firm called MyWeddingPlans back in the day which got oodles of money and then she’s had stints running Orbis, and TiE-Midwest but she did say as she dashed off to the elevator with a friend whose name I don’t know that in two weeks she’ll have a big announcement to make. All I can say is bring back Adash and Anjali. TiE worked when they ran it and since TLC, and Kristi L. and Maria Katris, it is not the same place that it was.

Now Collin Canright, if you doubt my trysts with your wife, tell me how I know that your daughter just finished her freshman year at Bard College and is studying film and that she came back out to Chicago on Amtrak. Collin, are you a WASP? You send your daughter to Bard, she takes the train which is a very North Shore type thing to do, sort of WASPy, and yet you wrote a book called co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah. I’ll give you till Monday to email me on how I know this.

Also exiting the scene but without Nik Rokop in tow were Ed Suda and Avelo Roy, the co-founders at www.bfflessthan3.com/. They announced a Series A round of funding on October 12, 2010 at MIT-EF for an undisclosed amount and last night they told me that they are closing on an up round for additional funding with Sandbox Industries, but since the deal is not closed they did not want to announce it yet. Hey guys, your secret is safe with me. Nik Rokop, btw, was not at the Save Abandoned Babies poker charity since he had some bit part in a play but Jules Knapp was there.

Another interesting scoop of sorts is from Dan Salcedo who was with SingleHop, you recall the guys who were everywhere and now can be found nowhere, Dan Ushman and Zak Boca. Dan Salcedo was director of marketing I believe. Anyway, he left SingleHop a week or so ago and is starting his own firm. I don’t know what it will be doing but Dan was talking to Kevin Willer long after most people had gone home down in the lobby of the Mart and he told me he is going out to California to study at some place called Foundation.

Dan is still involved with SingleHop finishing up some projects. He did tell me that SingleHop did a little more than $10MM in 2010 and they expect to do $23MM in 2011 with 60 employees. I don’t know if I believe those numbers, but they might be right.

I also talked to one guy from OnShore who told me one of their people left and went to Intelligentsia as the director of IT. Stel responds to my inquiry below.

Little bits and pieces I picked up: Some guy was talking to Matt Moog about Chris Kennedy, who runs the Mart, unless they sold it. And could that have been about Moog wanting to get space there?

Also, the guy from SpotHero, Mark Lawrence, I think, www.spothero.com told me they just launched on Tuesday or Wednesday, I believe. He will send me something but I have to send him an email first. He was also chatting with someone and I tried to eavesdrop on what they were saying. SpotHero allows you to rent out your parking space.

There were also some useless people at the event like David Dalka which shows that Matt Moog is right, they are all-inclusive. I’m surprised I did not see Willinger or Fred Hoch or Terry Howerton. OMG, speaking of useless people, I didn’t see Julian Pretto either.

I did see Geoff Domaracki who is in training to be a bigshot for a week in July. He said that there will be 200 events associated with Tech Week.

I am assuming that Troy Henikoff was there but have not confirmed that yet. Ross Kimbarovsky of www.crowdspring.com emailed me that he was not there.

Look, I will sign up for Built in Chicago and be sure to sign up early for any event.

TMR gives all sides to a story. Two people defended Len Bland to me since yesterday, not the way he falsely represents himself about having a fund which he does not have, but the general service he provides. I agree that he does provide a valuable service that is educational and as David Culver told me, “if nothing else a company gets practice presenting.” I also agree with that. But Len has not been selling education, he’s been selling funding.

David Culver told me that Funding Feeding Frenzy did get companies through Len and Dave Carman. As one other person put it to me, he does have a few investor connections but mostly he’s a coach and consultant and people don’t want to pay for that service.

You know who else was there? Blagica. She was an entrepreneur at one time but sold out and took a safe PR job.

There were also at least two guys who are principals at www.lightbank.com. What other VCs or investors were there?

Tim Saylor was there, no doubt pushing BarCamp 2011 which is July 9th and 10th. But his card says www.makertees.com which sells t-shirts. BTW, the Obama campaign is already pushing 2012 t-shirts reminiscing about 2008. Do I sense the presence of Harper Reed?

David Lasker has mediamonkeybiz.com.

Mark Mitten has www.mativision.com

Brian Bauer has a business called www.kurfuffl.com which sounds like www.thepoint.com which will be a non-profit after the Groupon IPO or so says the incontrovertible S-1.

Martin Thomas was at the Bootstrapper Breakfast on Wednesday and he has a firm called www.purlem.com. He was also at Built in Chicago last night.

BTW, if the woman who whizzed by me on her way to the elevator was Anna Rodenko, let me know. Some woman who knew me was either Anna or the Russian girl from MIT-EF from a few years ago.

Let me get this out.

I’ll save Howard Tullman for Monday and btw, I have a story involving Allscripts so we also get Glen Tullman.

On Monday, we’ll have:

Geras on his investment in uBid and what he really thinks of the previous management.
Howard Tullman
Don Paullin, $6.5MM, Allscripts and the deal that became $70MM
Saving Sachnoff & Weaver
Phil Tadros whose birthday is today and not sure if he’s 12 or 14.
Nancy Sullivan and we get specific
Rachel Barach and Tech.li who is moving to California and reporting for that genius Ed Domain with an IQ of 73. BTW, Jean Pickering told me that the reason Ed and I don’t get along is that we are so much alike. Ed, with friends like Jean, you don’t need….

See ya later, alligator.
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An interesting note from a new reader which shows all you PR and marketing folks how important branding is and how easy it is to muck it up

The Whiteboard Challenge

Inbox
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Reply
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Miller, Michelle to me

show details 1:43 PM (17 hours ago)

from Miller, Michelle Michelle.Miller@paetec.com
to “ron@themayreport.com”
date Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 1:43 PM
subject The Whiteboard Challenge
mailed-by paetec.com

hide details 1:43 PM (17 hours ago)

Hey Ron!

Came across the May Report today and absolutely love it! Just subscribed to the newsletter, and as a telecom IT Professional, I find it very interesting and would love to pick your brain.

I especially was interested in “The Chicagoland RPX Group Innovation WhiteBoard Challenge” but I guess I missed the date. I have an amazing idea, but need help launching it and working with the right individuals to make it happen. Any chance you’ll be doing something like this again anytime soon?

Also, I thought you might be interested in an event we are having at Arlington Park Race Track tomorrow. I know it’s last minute but below is the invitation if you can make it, you may find it of value since there are several IT related companies involved with hosting it. Let me know what you think.

Michelle Miller

www.paetec.com

312-924-9335

The Race to Unify Communications is On

Businesses today are racing to gain competitive advantage by connecting people and networks through unified communications – we can show you how to win.

Join ADTRAN, CALLTELE, Jenne, LifeSize, PAETEC, and ShoreTel at Arlington Park for a private party in the Governor’s Room to and enjoy an afternoon of high-paced horse racing action and learn how we can improve your business through the implementation of a unified communications solution.

Date:

Friday, June 24, 2011

Time:

2:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. CT
(park opens at 11:30 a.m., races begin at 3:00 p.m.)

Location:

The Governor’s Room
Arlington Park
2200 Euclid Avenue
Arlington Heights, IL 60006

Details:

* Free parking is available in lots A and B.
* Tickets can be picked up at the Clubhouse Entrance will call booth.
* Food and drinks will be provided at the event.

RSVP:

Please click here to RSVP by June 10
___________________________________
May here. The branding point is that it was the MIT-EF RPX Group WBC only one year and that has stuck around, mostly in TMR’s archives.
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Wednesday, June 29: BigFrontier cage match: Once in a lifetime Marketing Cage Match featuring Aggressive Aaron Strout (for Bob Pearson: Pre-Commerce) and Raging Rick Mathieson (On Demand Brand)

BIGfrontier’s Marketing author cage match: Wednesday, June 29 8:30 – Noon

Once in a lifetime Marketing Cage Match featuring Aggressive Aaron Strout (for Bob Pearson: Pre-Commerce) and Raging Rick Mathieson (On Demand Brand) – two of the hottest marketing authors of the season battling together for mindshare in the fast moving social media space!

REGISTER HERE: bigfrontier.eventbrite.com/?ref=ebtn

8:30 – 9:30 Networking

9:30- 10:30 Battling Bob Pearson

10:30 – 11:30 Raging Rick Mathieson

11:30: Bob and Rick enter the ring together to answer your questions

University Center 525 S. State St. Chicago, IL

A free copy signed copy of Pre-Commerce will be given to the first 25 attendees who show up with a written question for either of the authors.

Coffee and donuts will be served. There is no charge for this event.

REGISTER HERE: bigfrontier.eventbrite.com/?ref=ebtn

Aaron Strout explains how the exploding use of social media channels has fundamentally changed the way customers go about making their purchasing decisions, how they educate themselves and why they choose to support certain brands above others. Strout works in an overview of how Location Based Services can influence the pre-commerce equation.

Aaron Strout is a 17 year marketing veteran who specializes in the convergence of mobile, social and digital marketing. Aaron is the head of location-based marketing at global communications firm, WCG. At WCG, Aaron helps customers with social, mobile/LBS strategies. In addition, Aaron is a regular speaker, podcaster (thequickndirty.com) and blogger.

Prior to joining WCG, Aaron was the head of marketing at social media agency, Powered Inc. Before his stint at Powered, Aaron was the VP of social media at online community provider, Mzinga. Leading up to his position at Mzinga, Aaron spent nine years in various interactive roles at financial services company, Fidelity Investments.

Rick Mathieson discusses social networking, augmented reality, advergames, virtual worlds, digital outdoor mobile marketing, and more,for an inside look at digital strategies being deployed by brands like Coca-Cola, Burger King, BMW, Axe Deodorant, NBC Universal, Doritos, and many others. He will reveal ten essential secrets for capitalizing on the right mix of digital channels and experiences for any brand.

Rick Mathieson is an award-winning writer, author and creative strategist.

Heralded as “a strategic marketing expert” by Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge, his research into next generation business models has earned praise from USA Today. And his insights on postmodern marketing have been featured in ADWEEK, Advertising Age, Wired, Forbes and on MSNBC, CNN Radio and NPR.

His book BRANDING UNBOUND has ranked as the world’s #1 best-selling book on mobile marketing. And it has been hailed as a visionary and indispensable guide to the mobile revolution.

His new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, was a #1 Amazon “Hot New Release,” and has ranked among Amazon’s Top 10 books on advertising. Spanning social media, branded entertainment, mobile marketing and more, the book has been described as “required reading for the digital age” for its strategic approach to delivering blockbuster brand experiences through digital innovation.

For more information: www.bigfrontier.org Co produced with mobium creative group.

REGISTER HERE: bigfrontier.eventbrite.com/?ref=ebtn
________________________________
Stelios Valavanis: The guy from OnShore who went to Intelligentsia

Subject: Re: Stel, who was the guy from OnShore who went to Intelligentsia and as what?
Date: 6/24/2011 12:34:48 P.M. Central Daylight Time
From: stel@onshore.com
To: RONALDMAY@aol.com

Andrew Freivogel was Director of Residential Tehcnology at onShore at the end
of a 12 year run in many positions. He went to AM3 (am3inc.com) as a Sales
Exec when we sold the residential business to AM3 at the very and of 2009 and
then moved on to Intelligentsia as CIO about the summer of 2010.
Intelligentsia just signed off on a major overhaul of their multi-office voice
system through onShore. We already did much of their systems and network
management from before Andy was there. His email address is

Andrew Freivogel

On Friday, June 24, 2011 11:57:31 AM you wrote:
>
–
_________________________
Stelios Valavanis
Founder and President
onShore Networks
__________________________________
END OF REPORT