The May Report: 8/31/2011: Bulletin: Brad Williams, the spokesperson for Groupon resigned yesterday over disagreements w/ Andrew Mason w/ respect to Andrew’s memo to staff telling them to ignore press reports about the firm; Hey, at long last and with some of the worst publicity Sam Yagan is capable of — remember Sam what you told me in Sept. 2010 about the lousy marketing for this? — it’s Demo Day for the 2011 class of Excelerate Labs and this yr’s class has already raised capital at least w/ Babbaco, but I must say the mentor list is a hoot w/ Terry Howerton on it and my buddy Bob Geras (who has just about another 116 days in the TMR stockade) not on it at all and Geras has done more mentoring and investing in his pinky finger than Howerton has ever done in his whole body; They have 9 grads, did 1 firm drop out?; Has Dan Malven been demoted at Analyte Media & has Jason Jacobsohn changed jobs once again?; Meanwhile my write-up of the MoMo mt. Mon. at Bin 36 restaurant generously sponsored by Nokia; Phil Garofalo says he “caught a whiff of desperation” there; Gennady Shenker says he’s “Smoking, drinking, never thinking of tomorrow”; Nicholas Modoku (?) on Walgreen’s and W.W. Grainger mobile UX; Dave Bost on MS apps and Nokia needs developers at what was Novarra; and the report is so long, it will have to split into four or even five reports

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

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

Louis Brandeis: “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Scoop section:

– Groupon spokesman hired in June resigns
– Briefly noted, just one section of it, by Ron May
– Excelerate Labs 2011 portfolio
– The Excelerate Labs 2011 mentor list, overall a good one, but the Chicago way, and where’s Kevin Willer who is on just about everything else?; Ross Kimbarovsky, how ‘d you get on that list?; and Fred Hoch, old buddy old pal, don’t you know about as much about venture capital investing as Tom Thornton did when he ran the IL Coalition?
– Wednesday, August 31: EDC: Midwest Liquid Gold Luncheon
– Tuesday, September 6: Increase User Adoption with Microsoft Office 2010 & SharePoint 2010 9/6 SPUG
– Cards Ron collected at the Long Now Foundation talk about the 10,000 year clock given by Alexander Rose on 7/27/11
– Cards Ron collected at the Homeless Cop Launch on 8/18/11
– Cards Ron collected at the Bootstrappers’ Breakfast on 7/27/11
______________________________
The Scoop section:
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Groupon spokesman hired in June resigns

www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20110830/NEWS07/110839982/groupon-spokesman-hired-in-june-resigns

Groupon spokesman hired in June resigns
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By: John Pletz August 30, 2011
Related Videos: Groupon

(Crain’s) – Groupon Inc.’s new spokesman, Brad Williams, unexpectedly resigned.

The departure comes as the company made headlines with a memo from CEO Andrew Mason last week that appeared to run afoul of securities regulations designed to limit public comments ahead of initial public offerings.

News of Williams’ departure was first reported by the website Business Insider. Mr. Williams, a veteran of Yahoo and Verisign, is one of several top managers hired as Groupon prepared to go public.

A company spokeswoman confirmed his departure but declined to elaborate.

Business Insider, which had been critical of Mr. Mason’s memo, cited unnamed sources as saying Messers. Williams and Mason disagreed over how the company was responding to critics.

Groupon filed for an IPO in June but has drawn scrutiny for heavy losses and questions about the sustainability of its business model.

Read more: www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20110830/NEWS07/110839982/groupon-spokesman-hired-in-june-resigns#ixzz1WcPZOWMj
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___________________________________
Briefly noted, just one section of it, by Ron May

* Monday night’s MoMo meeting was different from usual. It was almost entirely a networking event held in an upscale restaurant, Bin 36, right next to the House of Blues. The food was pretty good. I liked the BBQ pork sandwiches, the shrimp, and the tuna. The organizers said that they expected 50 people but several attendees said that there were 40 people. I would buy 50 over the course of the evening and that has to include the speech pathologist cousin of Sheena Chandok, the woman working with Nokia who put the event together.

At most MoMo meetings they have a section along with the introductions for companies to advertise any job openings they may have but at this meeting that segment was skipped. However, later in the meeting, a big job lead came out almost by accident.

Nokia’s development center in Itasca is hiring 20-25 people, almost entirely developers. And this used to be Novarra, the firm run by Jayanthi and before that by Mark Achler who was a VC who funded them and before that Art Roldan (before Achler replaced him with himself for a while before bringing in Jayanthi from Motorola that is) — ah, the curse of a good memory! At TechWeek, Ellen Chambers who had been at Novarra for five years, I believe, told me that Nokia fired everyone other than the developers when they took over.

How many of the attendees were either unemployed or “in transition” or under-employed as so-called consultants?

Luke Hogan (luke@lukehogan.com) is an urban designer. Lisa Brown is a grad student in marketing and communications at Northwestern in the program that Don Schultz is in, and her friend Anne Ren(?) does what?; Andrew Davidson’s card reads “maker of intuitive things,” so he is probably looking for a job; Leroy Pinto (leroytpinto@gmail.com) tells me that he is biz dev and special effects (FX); and some of the people were a puzzlement to me. Todor Krecu does what for example? I thought he had some connection to Juno Wallet but apparently not. He’s a big build, grey hair and takes a lot of pics. plus.google.com/104312364047482983516#104312364047482983516/posts
I like some of the pics and he seems to like nice restaurants. He has a circle of 365 people and yet looking at his so-called site, I have no idea what he does. Now, Todor, there is no phone number or email on your card or I would call you. One thing I did learn from his site, if Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s third largest. Not sure if she is his girlfriend, but he likes “Viktoria Todoroska’s cooking demo at Kendall College.” Todor seems to be tied to mobile as a consultant somehow but he is not a developer from what I can sense based on our conversation.

I called one of the my “questionables,” Phil Garofalo, and he told me that “I caught a whiff of desperation,” and he estimated that 50% of the people there are unemployed. Maybe but it was not clear to me.

Is the man with no last name, Emil, pronounced Emile, with an MBA from ChicagoBooth, unemployed? I heard that he’s a strategic consultant which could mean rich or very poor. He kept avoiding me, but we did interact.

There was only one other person who willfully avoided me. Aside from Emil and that unnamed person, I was welcomed with open arms, quite contrary to what someone “predicted” back in June.

Here’s a dead giveaway that a person is looking: Greg Ortega, gregoryortega7@gmail.com

One guy whose name I don’t know off the top of my head is in biz dev, I think, and he wants to be a designer. He was talking to Nicholas Modoku (spelling on last name?). And he looks a bit like Dennis Quaid, and since he has no TV and never watches movies, he and Nicholas who also has no TV had no idea who Dennis Quaid is. I must be getting old.

Phil Garofalo has developed an app that is at the Nokia store. Recently he’s done work for a firm called Machine Control Specialists in Roselle. They are a sophisticated robotics firm that makes coil winding machines.

This, my friends, is the Chicago we rarely discuss while we’re so busy with Groupon, Rahm, the Cubs, the Sox, Trump Tower and that fish in Lake Michigan, and yes, lawsuits. The real Chicago is right here: (Read it or skip it, but I’m including it to make a point. This town is about a lot more than daily deals.)
++++++++++++++++++

www.mcsinc.com/

Machine Control Specialists, Inc. is a manufacturer of electronic controls and machinery. Our expertise is motion control and our product line focuses on the Medical Manufacturing and Coil Winding Industries. Our five major business divisions include control products, precision medical winders, new coil winding machines, coil winding machine rebuilds with control conversions and closed loop wire payoff and tensioning systems.

Precision Medical Coil Winders: Our specially designed series of precision medical winders are capable of “Mandrel Winding”, “Mandrel Coiling” and “Continuous Winding”. The wound components are used in catheters, guidewires, endoscopes, stents and other precision medical coils. Typical coils have .001-.035 inch (.025-.889mm) diameter stainless steel or precious metal wire wound over a .001-.375 inch (.025-9.52mm) diameter mandrel or tubing.

Electrical Coil Winders: Our new coil winder line includes a full range of machinery from benchtop to heavy duty winders for copper or aluminum wire. They can wind round wire, square wire, strip or foil. Each winder has the option of either the MCS4 PC based control or the MCS1 Embedded control. A wide range of dereelers, tensioners, and tooling complete the machine line.

Respooling Machines: Our respooling machine line includes solutions for wire, film & fiber. Spools for braiders are easily refilled. Hollow fiber winding is our specialty.

Specially Designed Machines: Using “Mechatronics” to solve the most difficult challenges. MCS has built many specially designed machines using our control expertise to combine mechanical, electronic, servomotors & pneumatic and hydraulic cylinders to produce fully automatic operation.

Control Products: The PC based and embedded control products we manufacture can significantly improve any machine that they control. Most often the speed of the machine is maximized along with improved reliability. Our programming interface is modern and intuitive. Our controls are available for customer installation or technicians in our factory can install them. Imagine the reduction of setup and programming time if all of your machines used the same language!

Closed Loop Pay Off Tensioners: MCS offers a line of closed loop pay off tensioners. They are servomotor driven with load cell feedback.

Control Conversions: We have rebuilt and converted controls on coil winding machines from many manufacturers. We can update and improve virtually any make or model coil winder with one of our standard control conversions.

In addition to new machines we also have a number of remanufactured previously owned machines in stock. Some of which are already converted to MCS controls and are available for immediate delivery. Others can be converted and delivered in a reasonable time. Please call or check out the list on our web site.
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May again. Phil says he’s contracted with MCS several times. He’s also done programming for Pat Systems, a futures software vendor in the downtown area.

At 52, with 30 years of experience, he has done a lot: 3Com, Rand McNally, CCH, and going back to 1990, he did work for Elaine Ditton at Incredible Technologies, the company with the most ubiquitous video game on the planet, or so he says (is that true?), Golden T Golf. I told Phil I have met her — was it at the KPMG Awards dinner?

Phil has coded in everything from Cobol and Assembly language to Objective C and C++ and let’s not forget Pascal. (philg@vavatini.com and 773-510-3203).

A few others from smaller firms included:
Josh Holden from www.taptrend.com
Robert Strube from www.nansendigital.com/
Mark Ferry, a consultant with Roundarch.com at mferry@roundarch.com
Phil Thompson, a project manager at the Swedish Trade Council
Jimmy Bremner, www.slalom.com
Brian Moran, Press Run marketing manager, brian_moran@mindspring.com
Tim (October67@hotmail.com), and he says he’s a Motorola mobility blackbelt.
Paul Everton, paule120@hotmail.com
Andy LaFond, alafond@criticalmass.com, www.criticalmass.com/
What?! This is the site for SXSW.

Here’s an interesting site. akie@redradius.co and www.redradius.co/
++++++++++++++
Connect in real time with people around you. Red Radius gives users checked into an Event or Location the ability to interact and network with each other. We provide a site specific live feed and capture the Buzz in the air.

Red Radius also provides Event Organizers and Locations audience measuring tools. Through our services, you can create a community around your event and add another dimension to live networking.
++++++++++++++++++++

May again. I don’t know if this guy has a real firm or job. Dan Novaes, co-founder, College Media Group, collegemediagroupllc.com/

++++++++++++++
www.FratStars.com is an all in one resource for college students providing new music and stories daily.
++++++++++++++++

BTW, not all consultants are under- or un-employed. David Allen of www.qmobilesolutions.com is a good example of a gainfully employed consultant who is also a very regular attendee at MoMo.

Also, don’t misunderstand, everyone is not unemployed or an independent consultant. There are also people from real firms like Ryan Flynn from Chase, Antony Deepak, I believe formerly of J.P. Morgan; Kathleen Page from Apple, Paul Simmons from Yahoo!, Matt Schmeltz from Acquity Group, Tim Curley from UBS, Kylin Dai, a developer at Morningstar; Amit Jasani, the CTO of SafetyBook, one of the five finalists in the COMPETE competition during this year’s TechWeek. Trace Johnson was not there for the second month in a row and he is one of the organizers of MoMo, but Vivek Vaid (spelling?) was there and he is not only an organizer, but also works at Morningstar. Scott Cotter and Simon Hunt of Nokia were also there.

By far, the most useful and newsworthy information of the evening came from Nicholas (nicholas@modoku.com) who just started with W. W. Grainger downtown in the offices of Acquity Group where twelve Grainger developers work. As Nicholas told me, Grainger is looking for space for its people, but they are temporarily housed at Acquity since Acquity is also doing their web development work.

Until about two months ago, Nicholas was with Walgreen’s in their E-Com development lab with about 200 people and that is also downtown.

“A lot of companies have downtown development offices since people don’t want to go to Lake Forest,” he said, referring to Grainger.

Nicholas has agreed to write for TMR. Gee, that was easy. No fuss, no muss. I asked and he said yes with alacrity. That is the key. He is willing to share information not hoard it. I could tell just be talking to him right away.

The most intriguing thing Nicholas told me was when he showed me his smart phone and pulled up a page with Walgreen’s icons. His point was that it was very difficult to get that developed as simply and user friendly as it turned out.

I mentioned Jason Fried and he knows all about Jason but he added that it is much easier to do from where Jason sits than it is .. what in a big company?

That was my sense but I shot him an email to confirm it.

At Grainger, Nicholas is the lead mobile UX guy.

I also spent some time talking to Gennady Shenker, uzhaskey@yahoo.com, who gave me the line for the night: “Smoking, drinking, never thinking of tomorrow.”

Gennady also likes Belvedere Vodka, which is Polish, but it is his fave. www.belvederevodka.com/

Gennady remembers me from 1997 where we met at LOLA. My that brings back memories. He asked me what happened to Josh Schneider and I had to tell him that Josh changed his name to Metnick years ago which is why Gennady could not find Josh on Google.

Aside from that, we talked about Russian literature and he told me that he much prefers to read it in Russian. He is Ukrainian, btw.

But when Gennady and I talked about Tom Thornton and he knew little of what became of Tom, when I told him a brief sketch of it, he said as only an old citizen of the USSR could say, “He was doing business in Kansas the Chicago way.” Yes, Gennady, that pretty much sums it up.

Dave Bost of Microsoft gave a talk to the attendees and he thankfully spoke in clear understandable terms and kept it brief. dave.bost@microsoft.com, 630-725-4090, blog, davebost.com

He showed us an app for people flying and he discussed Mango and Bing.

When I came home, a guy who was trying to get into my building knew me. He does not live here but he was looking into an apartment for a friend and he told me that apartment rentals are very much of a seller’s market right now. The landlords are calling the shots. But then he said that he was looking forward to my report since he has been reading it since 1998 and he knew the whole marchFIRST and Divine story well. His name is Eric Bingen (773-988-3069 and eric.c.bingen@gmail.com).

You know what, I am glad the Groupon guy quit because it gives me a chance to make the report a more manageable size.
________________________________
Excelerate Labs 2011 portfolio

www.exceleratelabs.com/portfolio/

BabbaCo Logo The BabbaBox is a monthly subscription box that has all the physical materials + know-how content to really engage with your kids. It’ll help you create, explore, storytell, and digitally learn based on monthly themes and developmental age.

Buzz Referrals Logo
Buzz Referrals helps companies transform ordinary customers into extraordinary promoters. With one line of code, any company can launch its own referral program to acquire new customers and engage existing ones.

Cookitforus Logo

CookItFor.Us connects Cravers to Makers, to get recipes made. We enable Cravers (food lovers) to get fresh made food delivered; and licensed Makers (caterers, personal chefs, restaurants) to make foods Cravers want. We deliver all the benefits of homemade, without the work! founders@cookitforus.com

Exchangery logo
Exchangery helps industry experts to create their own commodities exchanges. Founded by Chris Duesing and Kellee James, formerly of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Exchangery provides the regulatory certification as well as the technology, banking and clearing relationships needed to start a new exchange. Contact us at founders@theexchangery.com

Food Genius Logo

Discover and share your next favorite dish with Food Genius. By understanding what’s on every menu and in every dish, we connect hungry people to dishes they’ll love, restaurants to customers on a granular level, and an entire industry to critical consumer data. founders@getfoodgenius.com

Goshi Logo {Editor’s note: Ron May here. Goshi was known as Mapding until about a month ago when they changed their name.]

Goshi is a smartphone application that allows you to discover unique items nearby, not by your social graph, not by your buying history, but by people in your community who share your tastes.

We help young professionals discover and connect with the right people to advance their career. We combine data from a member’s entire social graph and connect them to others through areas of interest – people they never knew existed. Then we give users way to introduce themselves and track their meetings in a simple, directed process

Joystickers Logo
Joystickers is reinventing mobile gaming with products that bring the console experience to touch screens. Utilizing existing technologies, Joystickers turns anything into a mobile gaming peripheral. Contact founders Anthony Cerra and Russ Hakimiyan directly at founders@joystickers.com.

Power2Switch Logo
Power2Switch: an electricity cost reduction/management portal for residential & small business customers to comparison shop rates and switch to a lower cost supplier in 5mins. We analyze usage data to provide further cost reduction tips.

Shortlist logo
Shortlist helps you make more meaningful connections at professional events. We turn the traditional business model on its head to create a triple-win for attendees, organizers and exhibitors
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Look out for news regarding Demo Day on August 31st!

Apply Now!
Deadline is March 18th
Excelerate Labs Tweets
One week left until Demo Day and 8 of the 10 teams are burning the midnight oil at the @ExcelerateLabs office tonight! 1 day ago
@SassyCEOs unfortunately we are overbooked with investors, mentors and sponsors so Demo Day is not open to the public, sorry! 1 day ago
RT @CookItForUs: Ever wonder if it is better to eat before or after your morning workout routine? t.co/M4CHEoU 2 days ago
RT @jozeran: Just saw a nice segment covering @getfoodgenius on @WGNTV. Nice work guys! (cc @joe_pia) 2 days ago
RT @SnowSun: Looking forward to Chicago next week for @ExcelerateLabs Investor Day! Especially @BuzzReferrals & @IntroFly. 3 days ago

Excelerate LabsHome Details Schedule Mentors Investors Sponsors Portfolio Blog
Our Companies
Class of 2011
Company Description

We offer event planners and businesses a one-stop solution for creating mobile social websites. We are unique in that we focus on community-building communication tools as well as e-commerce. Our vision is to be WordPress for real-world social settings from cafes to conferences.

We turn the daily struggles of parenting into solutions by uniquely integrating products & video content. We’re the “Netflix of parenting solutions” – subscription model of monthly boxes delivered to their home addressing the specific parenting need/stage.

We are the virtual career coach for Gen Y. We help people leverage their entire social graph to connect with the right people, in the right way. Our users get off the networking sites and into the coffee shops where real connections happen. They track their meetings in a simple, directed process that helps them land a job they love.

With a single line of code, we let companies create their own branded referral programs that integrate seamlessly with their websites and social media efforts. Buzz Referrals makes sharing simple, effective, and engaging, turning customers into Brand Advocates who are rewarded for referring friends. Companies can easily track social media buzz and new customer referrals in real time. We give companies a better referral program, faster.

We connect Cravers to Makers to get recipes made. We monetize the abundance of online and offline recipe content by matching people who want recipes made, Cravers, with people who are best able to bring those recipes to life, Makers, (e.g. Restaurants, Bakeries, Personal Chefs, Caterers, Commercial and Community Kitchens), via a socially enabled community and internet transaction platform – earning us 20% of each completed sale.

We are an exchange platform as a service company that allows anyone to create their own tradable products, without going through an existing commodities exchange. Exchangery handles the technology, banking and regulatory relationships while allowing the customer to focus on the design, marketing and business development associated with new markets.

iTunes changed how we buy music, shifting the market from albums to songs. We fundamentally changes how we connect to food, shifting the focus from restaurants to dishes.

We bridge the gap between the physical and digital world. Our current products turn your touch screen device into a gaming console or a paint canvas.

We are a real-time, location-based smartphone application for buying and selling locally.
We are an electricity cost reduction and energy use monitoring/management portal for residential and small business customers. Through the site customers can request quotes from the 13 suppliers we partner with and switch to a lower cost electricity provider. The site integrates with supplier websites, and automatically retrieves customer historic data enabling suppliers to offer reduced. All this is provided in an easy to use, customer-friendly interface

Class of 2010
Company Description
EduLender is a simple and comprehensive comparison engine for student loans. Our online student loan marketplace was developed in collaboration with students, lenders, and financial aid officers. EduLender collects lender data such as student loan rates and fees every day and presents all of the information in a clean and easy-to-understand apples-to-apples comparison.
FanGo Software Systems produces mobile commerce ordering solutions with a core focus on stadium and arenas. Our FanGo mobile application allows fans to order food, drinks and merchandise to their seats at stadiums and arenas. Fans can also pick up pre-paid goods from the nearest concessions stand.
Starting and running a business is hard. Business owners don’t have time to negotiate the fine print of their financial services agreements. Starting with credit card processing, FeeFighters has simplified the shopping process with free reverse auctions that get business owners the best deals. Customers get instant bids from the best service providers along with apples-to-apples price comparisons, ratings and reviews and special cost-saving promotions.
GiveForward is an online tool that makes it extremely easy for people to raise money for a loved one’s medical expenses. The website provides individuals with free, customizable fundraising pages where friends and family from across the world can donate online. As of August 2010, the company has helped families raise over $2 million for things like chemotherapy, organ transplants, travel expenses and insurance co-pays.
MathZee is a K-5 supplemental, online education platform that teaches math through fun games by utilizing audio, visual, and kinesthetic cues. Our games are created to provide children with a rigorous math curriculum consistent with the new national standards, while delivering content through an interactive and adaptive gaming environment. Our games are designed to develop critical thinking skills while assessing a child’s performance in a non-intrusive manner.
Noblivity connects specialty stores with small brands and each other, enabling rapid discovery, direct access and seamless transactions. Small Brands. Big Marketplace.
PVPower is simplifying solar power installations by developing Web-based productivity tools for solar installers, its core customers, to make their businesses more profitable and efficient.
ScholarPRO is developing a revolutionary online application for the education industry. The business is currently in stealth mode and will expect a first prototype release in late August.
Tap Me solves the problem of in-game advertising context and relevancy by leverage game mechanics and social media to make brands a valuable part of gameplay-while maintaining integrity of the gaming experience.
WeGather’s goal is to revolutionize engagement in religion through the use of technology. Their community website provides a centralized web-based system that allows members throughout a place of worship to use a unified comprehensive platform that increases donations, improves volunteer participation, centralizes E-Communications, and secures all information.

Look out for news regarding Demo Day on August 31st!
______________________________
The Excelerate Labs 2011 mentor list, overall a good one, but the Chicago way, and where’s Kevin Willer who is on just about everything else?; Ross Kimbarovsky, how ‘d you get on that list?; and Fred Hoch, old buddy old pal, don’t you know about as much about venture capital investing as Tom Thornton did when he ran the IL Coalition?

www.exceleratelabs.com/mentors/

Mentors
Excelerate mentors are the best at what they do. They have founded or invested in numerous successful ventures. These mentors will share their wisdom and experience with the Excelerate community.

Mark Achler,
SVP New Business, Strategy & Innovation, Redbox

Arjun Aggarwal,
HealthScape Advisors

J.T. Allen,
CEO, myFootpath LLC

Michael Alter,
President, SurePayroll, Inc.

Melissa Anderson,
Sittercity.com

Bob Armour,
CEO, Timelines

John Banta,
Managing Director, IllinoisVentures, LLC

Esther Barron,
Director, NU Entrepreneurship Law Center

Ryan Blitstein,
Executive Director, SCE

Tony Bombacino,
President & COO, Geomentum

Joe Born,
CEO, Neuros Technology Intl LLC

Wayne Boulais,
General Partner, Apex Venture Partners

Eric Budish,
Economics Professor, Chicago Booth

Michael Burke,
Founder, appssavvy

Ellen Carnahan,
Principal, Machrie Enterprises

Shawn Carpenter,
CEO, YCharts.com

Raman Chadha,
Executive Director, DePaul University

Kapil Chaudhary,
Managing Partner, I2A Fund

Leon Chism,
CTO, Analyte Health

Lon Chow,
Apex Venture Partners

Sal Cilella,
Associate Partner, gravitytank

David Cohen,
Founder/CEO, TechStars

Jeff Coney,
Director, Northwestern Universty

Chris Conn,
Founder/CEO, MightyNest

Phil Corse,
CEO, Marketing Connections

James (Jamie) Crouthamel,
Principal, Old Town Capital

Dan Cummings,
VP Product, GPShopper

Linda Darragh,
Director of Entre. Programs, Chicago Booth

Jan Davis,
Board Member, BiddRocket

George Deeb,
Managing Partner, Red Rocket Ventures

Greg DellaFranco,
VP, Strategy

Jim Dugan,
CEO/Managing Member, OCA Ventures

Joe Dwyer,
Venture Partner, OCA Ventures

Kevin Efrusy,
Partner, Accel Partners

Harry Eschel,
Director, Research In Motion

Mike Evans,
Founder & COO, GrubHub

Steve Farsht,
Gofer, Grip and Gaffer – Excelerate Labs

Bob Fealy,
President, The Duchossois Group

Brad Feld,
Managing Director, Foundry Group

Jason Felger,
Business Development, Redbox

Brian Fields,
Corporate Development, Tribune Company

Mike Folgner,
CEO, snappytv.com

Eric Fosse,
Founder, HomeMade Pizza Co.

Constance Freedman,
Managing Director, Second Century Ventures

Jim Gagnard,

Mike Gamson,
SVP Global Sales, Linkedin

David Gardner,
Partner, ColorJar

Blair Garrou,
Managing Director, DFJ Mercury

Lindsay Gaskins,
CEO, Marbles: The Brain Store

Ryan Gembala,
Associate, Azure Capital Partners

Robert Giammanco,
Executive, 2XL Corporation

Aziz Gilani,
Associate, DFJ Mercury

Chris Girgenti,
New World Ventures/Managing Partner

Mark Glennon,
Managing Director, Ninth Street Advisors

Ajay Goel,
Founder, JangoMail

Sanjay Gosalia,
Director of Digital Acquisition,Discover Financial

Harry Gottlieb,
Jellyvision/Founder & CEO

Sarah Gray,
Advisor, Technical Advocates

Ted Greene,
CEO, Old Willow Partners

Joel Grossman,
SVP Technology & Operations, Leapfrog Online

Darren Guccione,
Co-founder, Callpod, Inc. & OnlyWire, LLC

Kristin Hackney,
Founder, M2C1 Limited

Anna Haghgooie,
Vice President, Sandbox Industries

Corey Haines,
Advisor, Technical Advocates

Brian Hand,
Chairman & Co-Founder, Timelines, Inc

Jason Harinstein,
SVP Corporate Development, Groupon

Thomas Harman,
Founder & CEO, Balsam Brands

Tom Hawes,
Vice President, Sandbox Industries

Jason Heltzer,
Principal, OCA Ventures

Troy Henikoff,
CEO, Excelerate Labs

Dan Hess,
CEO/Co-Founder, Local Offer Network

Fred Hoch,
President, Illinois Technology Association

Jeff Hoffman,
Partner, ColorJar LLC

Brett Holland,
Partner, Old Willow Partners

Bill Houston,
Elsworth & Assc.

Dan Howell,
Senior Managing Director, Mesirow Financial

Terry Howerton,
Chairman, Illinois Tech Association

Joe Jablonski,
President, WeGather

Jason Jacobsohn,
Managing Director, Gentry Private Capital

Mike Jakob,
President & COO, Sportvision

Jim Jerue,
Partner, Horwood Marcus & Berk

Jeff Joseph,
Managing Partner, Prescient Capital Partners

Steve Kaplan,
Neubauer Family Professor, University of Chicago

Zach Kaplan,
CEO, Inventables

Ross Kimbarovsky,
Co-Founder, crowdSPRING, LLC

Matthew N. Klein,
Founder/CEO, Fuor

Scott Kluth,
Founder, CouponCabin.com

Adam Koopersmith,
Partner, New World Ventures

Alex Kormushoff,
President. 376main Ltd

Kevin Kotowski,
Exec Director Digital Technology, Catalina

Tim Krauskopf,
Principal, Round Lake Designs, LLC

Seth Kravitz,
Co-founder, Technori

Amanda Lannert,
President, The Jellyvision Lab

Stuart Larkins,
Managing Partner, Twin Capital

Paul H. Lee,
Partner, Lightbank

Scott Lerner,
Solixir, Founder

Vicki Levine,
Principal, Lightbank

Dave Linhardt,
Life Phase Media LLC / Founder

Bart Loethen,
Partner, Synergy Law Group

Eddie Lou,
Entrepreneur/Investor, Us Empowered

Thomas J. Loverro,
Senior Associate, RRE Ventures

Eric Lunt,
CTO, BrightTag

Dan Lyne,
Director, World Business Chicago

Michael J. Lyons,
CEO, Image Advantage

Dan Malven,
VP of Business Development, Analyte Health

Michael A Marasco,
Director, NU Farley Center for Entrepreneurship

Raymond J. Markman,
President, Financial Life Planning

Jeff Maters,
New World Ventures

Devin Mathews,
Partner, Chicago Growth Partners

Bret Maxwell,
Managing General Partner, MK Capital

Matthew B. McCall,
Partner, New World Ventures

Steve Miller,
Principal, Origin Ventures

Douglas M. Monieson,
Screening Chairman, Hyde Park Angels

Brad Morehead,
CEO, SafeMart

Elan Mosbacher,
Marketing Manager, Ifbyphone

Jeffrey Moss,
Chief of Enterprise Growth, ETS

Sebastian Mueller-Soppart,
SVP Creative Director, Leo Burnett

Brenden Mulligan,
ArtistData/Founder

Eric Olson,
Project Manager, McMaster-Carr

Jonathan Pasky,
President, midVentures

Armando Pauker,
General Partner, Apex Venture Partners

Jim Pavlik,
Partner, Baird Venture Partners

Una Pipic,
Client Services,Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center

Thea Durfee Polancic,
Founding Partner, ClearSpace, LLC

Andrew Razeghi,
Lecturer, Kellogg School of Management

Harper Reed,
Awesome, Harper Rules, LLC

John Roa,
President, AKTA Web Studio

Nik Rokop,
Director,IIT Stuart Knapp Entrepreneurship Center

Art Roldan,
CEO, ISD Corporation

Guy Romano,
Director of Enterprise Research, Motorola

Jason Rubinstein,
GM/VP Digital Media, Redbox

Ellen Rudnick,
Director, Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship

Pat Ryan,
Founder/CEO, INCISENT

Steve Sanger,
VP Business Development, GrubHub

Ed Scanlan,
Founder/CEO, Total Attorneys

Dan Scholnick,
General Partner, Trinity Ventures

David Schonthal,
Partner, Fusion Ventures

Reese Schroeder,
Managing Director, Motorola Solutions Venture Capi

Rob Schultz,
Managing Director, IllinoisVentures

Andy Schultz,
Ex-CEO, Quiconnect

Tasha Seitz,
Partner

David Semmel,
General Partner, Kettle Partners

Rishi Shah,
CEO, ContextMedia, Inc.

Irv Shapiro,
CEO, ifbyphone

Jeff Smith,
CEO, Clarity

Matt Spiegel,
Annalect, An Omnicom Media Group Co.

Julie Springer,
Marketing Consultant, Aerie Development

Seth Sternberg,
Co-Founder & CEO, Meebo

Rob Streeter,
Director eCommerce Product Mgmt, Sears Holdings

Peter Tapling,
CEO, Authentify, Inc.

Drew Turitz,
Vice President, Sandbox Industries

David Veenstra,
VP, Strategy & New Ventures

Peter Vitale,
Director, Academy for Global Citizenship

Tom Weigman,
Partner, NextGen Marketing Group

John Weinlader,
President, VS Networks

Ira Weiss,
Managing Director, Hyde Park Angels

Alex White,
Co-founder & CEO, Next Big Sound

Andy Whitman,
Partner, 2x Consumer Products Growth Partners

Donna Williamson,
Managing Director, Ceres Venture Fund, L.P.

Doug Wilson,
Managing Partner, Breakthrough Technologies

Bob Zimmerman,
CTO, Geneca

Teddy Zmrhal,
Partner – Congruity
__________________________________
Wednesday, August 31: EDC: Midwest Liquid Gold Luncheon

Midwest Liquid Gold Luncheon
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Reply |EDC Chicago edc@edcchicago.org
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August 31st Monthly Luncheon

Milwaukee-7 Water Council & Midwest Liquid Gold Luncheon

When: Wednesday, August 31, 2011, Noon
Where: The Tower Club, 20 N. Wacker Drive, 39th Floor, Chicago, Illinois
The cost of the luncheon is $40 for EDC members and $65 for non-members. There is no charge for EDC Corporate and Sustaining Members. Reservations are mandatory and can be made by prepaying online at www.edcchicago.org , emailing Kathleen Matuszewich at edc@edcchicago.org or calling the EDC at 773-279-8787.
Not a member, click here to become a member.
Join the EDC as our monthly luncheon series continues with a program by Sammis B. White, Professor and Associate Dean for the School of Continuing Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
A few years ago a group of business, academic and economic development leaders evaluated one of Milwaukee’s historic legacies, that a number of local firms had created businesses based on addressing water programs and developing solutions. The firms involved included those who designed, built and distributed filters, valves, pumps, controls, tanks, software and similar items for public as well as private markets.
Some reports indicate that the water industry worldwide already is $483 billion and will grow at least 10% a year through 2016. The Milwaukee group discovered that there are over 120 companies in the water-related industries in their area. They have identified this as a true “industrial cluster.”
In 2006 they held their first Water Summit, which was attended by approximately 65 people. They learned that the academic community around Milwaukee included more than 110 fresh water scientists and researchers from biology to chemistry and engineering to geology. From this effort evolved the Milwaukee-7 Water Council, looking at local, national and international issues and programs.
Sammis B. White is a professor of urban planning and Associate Dean for the School of Continuing Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and active in the Water Council in Milwuakee. Professor White has a Bachelor of Arts from William College and his Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. The title “Midwest Liquid Gold” is from an article written by Prof. White for The Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
______________________________
Tuesday, September 6: Increase User Adoption with Microsoft Office 2010 & SharePoint 2010 9/6 SPUG

Subject: Increase User Adoption with Microsoft Office 2010 & SharePoint 2010 9/6 SPUG
Date: 8/18/2011 11:10:43 P.M. Central Daylight Time
From: jwillinger@rightpoint.com
To: RONALDMAY@aol.com

Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies User Group presents a free event at 6pm at Illinois Technology l Tech Nexus 200 S Wacker ste 1500

Increase User Adoption with Microsoft Office 2010 & SharePoint 2010. Our September 6 program features Microsoft’s very own Alisa Swann.

The discussion will be around Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. They are more intertwined than ever. We will discuss and demonstrate a number of key integration points that you can leverage to increase your SharePoint adoption, including:

Details around coauthoring in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote

What is the Microsoft Office Backstage and why should you care

Syncing to SharePoint Workspace, the “rich client” for SharePoint 2010

The new Upload Center

PowerPoint Broadcast Slide Show

As always, tasty pizza, salad and soft drinks will be served. Register here: www.meetup.com/sharepoint/events/24595951/

Best regards,

Jeff

……

Jeffrey S. Willinger
312.622.2300 cell

jwillinger@rightpoint.com
www.rightpoint.com

www.linkedin.com/in/jeffwillinger

twitter.com/jwillie

www.facebook.com/jeffwillinger

www.meetup.com/sharepoint
___________________________________
Cards Ron collected at the Long Now Foundation talk about the 10,000 year clock given by Alexander Rose on 7/27/11

Alexander Rose
Executive Director
The Long Now Foundation
www.longnow.org
zander@longnow.org

Johnny Kline
Lead Organizer
johnny@pipeline.com

Christopher Ina
Manifest
chris.ina@manifestdigital.com

Bryan Campen
New Media Director
The Long Now Foundation
www.longnow.org
bryan@longnow.org

Jim Jacoby
Founder
Manifest
jim.jacoby@manifestdigital.com
______________________
Cards Ron collected at the Homeless Cop Launch on 8/18/11

Mark Stueck
www.markstueck.com
markstueck@gmail.com

Rinat Khaziev
Software Engineer
Doejo
rinat@doejo.com

Katie Bezorouch
Regional Manager
Doejo
katie@doejo.com

Elizabeth Gilmore
Design Ninja
Doejo
elizabeth@doejo.com

Megan Weinerman
www.meganweinerman.com

Steve Hanlen
hanlen57@yahoo.com

Jamie Sterle
Event Coordinator
jamie@indirapproductions.com
________________________
Cards Ron collected at the Bootstrappers’ Breakfast on 7/27/11

Andy Crestodina
Principal, Stretegic Director
Orbit Media Studios
andy@orbitmedia.com

Jason Gonzales
Founder and CEO
Aqua Vida
www.aquavida.org
jason@aquavida.org

Chris Cleveland
CEO
Diesel Point
www.dieselpoint.com
ccleveland@dieselpoint.com

Ben Reid
Foodie Registry
www.foodieregistry.com
ben@foodieregistry.com

Greg Sonbouchner
Founder
Karma Cloud
www.karmacloud.com
greg@karmacloud.com

Bryon Finke
Founder
Furnishly
bryon@furnishly.com

Erik Severinghaus
Founder
Koala Deal
www.koaladeal.com
erik@koaladeal.com

Malcolm Newsome
Founder & President
ETW Services
www.etwservices.com
malcolm.newsome@etwservices.com
_______________________________
END OF REPORT