2011 November Archive - The May Report

Archive for November, 2011

The May Report: 11/30/2011: Sears and CME Group do not get tax breaks from Springfield; Now that life is back to normal after we survived the Groupon IPO — gee, I already miss all the hype!; Meanwhile back at the ranch, after 2 years of piddling and fiddling, tomorrow, Dec. 1st, the new TMR site will be launched, but we’re keeping the old site, and people like Pek Pongpaet and Tom Sherman who pointed out at the TBIF presentation I did in July 2008 (where all of this really got started) that TMR was at the end of a dirt road off the information super highway that no off ramp could get to will be happy, but some folks like Chris Tomes, Michael Kurgan, Mike Rhodes, TIHII, DD, and many others may not be so happy since TMR will now be in the main blood stream and its content will be more visible — thanks to Robbie Abed, John Doering (RIP), Paul May and others for help and support — and I posted about 190 articles myself, finishing at 4:15am today and that’s what I did Thanksgiving weekend; I’m still checking it out, but rumor is that Scott F. Upp is suing his son Scottie Upp who left the firm and started his own, plus get this, Scott threw a bottle at an employee who recently left the firm, accusing him of feeding info. to his son — you can’t make this stuff upp!; Now that Craig Nelson was found not guilty of assault, he wants money from the 111 East Chestnut condo association and he is threatening to bring charges against a lawyer on the board who did not even testify, Donna Simpson; and Brend Shore is back at The Bagel with her tail between her legs; How was Technori last night?

The May Report November 30th, 2011

The May Report: 11/30/2011: Sears and CME Group do not get tax breaks from Springfield; Now that life is back to normal after we survived the Groupon IPO — gee, I already miss all the hype!; Meanwhile back at the ranch, after 2 years of piddling and fiddling, tomorrow, Dec. 1st, the new TMR site…

The May Report: 11/23/2011: Just in time for Black Friday: Groupon’s goose lays an empty egg as stock closes below strike price of $20 — it dropped 15.5% today alone — two days ago it was at $25; ExactTarget files for IPO; Connolly receives thumbs down in criminal hearing; Lou Calamaras to wed longtime girlfriend Megan Loewe on December 3rd, but not in the Greek church!; Ron Galowich asks job candidates “Are you a nice person?”; Jason Jacobsohn “repositioning” himself — once again – hey just call him Dave Culver 2.0; i.c. stars on 24th cycle with a record sized starting class of 15; searching for Bob Bernard’s death certificate — more detail on all of this to come; My info., unconfirmed, is that two panelists at Funding Feeding Frenzy in May 2011 (Dave Beazley and Les Teichner) invested in Imdorse.com [which is a play on the words Image & endorsements... Brings Social network users and brands together like never before. Companies allow social network users the opportunity to endorse their brand(s) through a unique patent pending branding method developed by Imdorse LLC. Endorsers promote the brands and services they already use and like in the form of embellishing their social network profile photo in exchange for discounts, freebies and rewards]

The May Report November 23rd, 2011

The May Report: 11/23/2011: Just in time for Black Friday: Groupon’s goose lays an empty egg as stock closes below strike price of $20 — it dropped 15.5% today alone — two days ago it was at $25; ExactTarget files for IPO; Connolly receives thumbs down in criminal hearing; Lou Calamaras to wed longtime girlfriend…

The May Report: 11/16/2011: Bulletin: Alterian closes Chicago office with 75 people after a number of layoffs going back at least to March and April of this year and my sources say that the head of sales Michael Fisher is a micro manager and control freak; word is that everything had to go through him, plus one might ask whether Alterian’s purchase of two social media firms in the last two years was a good idea — if they failed to execute — and you know I’m just blowing it out my rear end, but this is what I’m being told by those in the know; and Joe Fuller who is on the ITA board is the managing director, USA, for Alterian; Michael Kurgan resurfaces in Southern Cal as he is denied a lease for 10k sf at $25K per month after the leasor did due diligence, including items in this report — so Terry Howerton and Stephen Meade, this is the counter to your arguments that something on the internet is forever– sometimes, as in this case, thank goodness it is; 250-300 attend i.c. stars tech bash at Excalibur and I was one of them but more on that later

The May Report November 16th, 2011

The May Report: 11/14/2011: Part I (of 2): 2011 Chicago Innovation Awards: The ten winning products and services were: Red Frog Events; Navman Wireless’ Qtanium; Illinois Tool Works’ Global Capless; Tripp Lite’s SRCOOL12K Portable AC unit; Elkay’s EZH20; World Bicycle Relief’s Buffalo Bicycles; Appolicious; Callibra’s Discharge 1-2-3 Composer; Trustwave’s Trustkeeper; and Narrative Science plus many of the up and comers look strangely like a list of investments by Lightbank; Krahl construction officials indicted and somehow they were tied to the building that housed the Syncubator, and more.

The May Report November 14th, 2011

The May Report: 11/14/2011: Part I (of 2): 2011 Chicago Innovation Awards: The ten winning products and services were: Red Frog Events; Navman Wireless’ Qtanium; Illinois Tool Works’ Global Capless; Tripp Lite’s SRCOOL12K Portable AC unit; Elkay’s EZH20; World Bicycle Relief’s Buffalo Bicycles; Appolicious; Callibra’s Discharge 1-2-3 Composer; Trustwave’s Trustkeeper; and Narrative Science plus many…

The May Report: 11/14/2011: Bulletin: Not a scoop, but being reported in the last hour, so it’s close: Salesforce.com buys Model Metrics for undisclosed sum; Don’t make the mistake of confusing this with an IP play, it’s really a human capital play since Model Metrics is a consulting firm; and fair is fair: just as Initiate Systems was bought by IBM, Model Metrics has been very involved in and honored by the ITA; also, I noticed that Model Metrics has news recently, Nov. 1st, involving the firm and the cloud — more on that later

The May Report November 14th, 2011

The May Report: 11/14/2011: Bulletin: Not a scoop, but being reported in the last hour, so it’s close: Salesforce.com buys Model Metrics for undisclosed sum; Don’t make the mistake of confusing this with an IP play, it’s really a human capital play since Model Metrics is a consulting firm; and fair is fair: just as…

The May Report: 11/14/2011: Part II (of 2): 2011 Chicago Innovation Awards: The ten winning products and services were: Red Frog Events; Navman Wireless’ Qtanium; Illinois Tool Works’ Global Capless; Tripp Lite’s SRCOOL12K Portable AC unit; Elkay’s EZH20; World Bicycle Relief’s Buffalo Bicycles; Appolicious; Callibra’s Discharge 1-2-3 Composer; Trustwave’s Trustkeeper; and Narrative Science plus many of the up and comers look strangely like a list of investments by Lightbank; Krahl construction officials indicted and somehow they were tied to the building that housed the Syncubator, and more.

The May Report November 14th, 2011

The May Report: 11/14/2011: Part II (of 2): 2011 Chicago Innovation Awards: The ten winning products and services were: Red Frog Events; Navman Wireless’ Qtanium; Illinois Tool Works’ Global Capless; Tripp Lite’s SRCOOL12K Portable AC unit; Elkay’s EZH20; World Bicycle Relief’s Buffalo Bicycles; Appolicious; Callibra’s Discharge 1-2-3 Composer; Trustwave’s Trustkeeper; and Narrative Science plus many…

The May Report: 11/11/2011: Post-Groupon IPO depression; don’t forget Palindrome day; Something to be proud of in Chicago: Cars.com has withdrawn from sponsoring Saturday’s Penn State’s home game against Nebraska; what I have found out so far about the demise of Advanced Life Sciences; and much more so let me get this out

The May Report November 11th, 2011

The May Report: 11/11/2011: Post-Groupon IPO depression; don’t forget Palindrome day; Something to be proud of in Chicago: Cars.com has withdrawn from sponsoring Saturday’s Penn State’s home game against Nebraska; what I have found out so far about the demise of Advanced Life Sciences; and much more so let me get this out Editor and…

The May Report: 11/11/2011: Once in a century!: The eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year — we won’t see it again until 11/11/2111 — so the rush job and three more reports to come today

The May Report November 11th, 2011

The May Report: 11/11/2011: Once in a century!: The eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year — we won’t see it again until 11/11/2111 — so the rush job and three more reports to come today Editor and publisher: Ron May, ron@themayreport.com, ronaldmay@aol.com, www.themayreport.com…

The May Report: 11/4/2011: Waiting for Groupon — nevermore — with apologies to both Samuel Beckett and Edgar Allan Poe; John Abell of Wired.com says they must be uncorking champagne tonight sine they raised $700MM, got a nice but not too much of a pop which means they did not leave much on the table; the focus now shifts to what they do with the money — mobility, loyalty programs to lock in customers to compete with Google and Amazon, etc., (and what is the difference between users and customers anyway?); Funding Feeding Frenzy draws smaller crowd than in May with 16 presenters including everything from a flying car to a smart bar that automatically mixes your drinks (machine is a cool $17.5K); Geek2Chic draws 200-300 happy campers at Bloomingdales and a about 60 at the after party at Underground which I attended

The May Report November 4th, 2011

The May Report: 11/4/2011: Waiting for Groupon — nevermore — with apologies to both Samuel Beckett and Edgar Allan Poe; John Abell of Wired.com says they must be uncorking champagne tonight sine they raised $700MM, got a nice but not too much of a pop which means they did not leave much on the table;…

The May Report: 11/2/2011: Look, Groupon is not the only firm in Chicagoland and note to Kevin Willer: we have biotech, life sciences, nanotech, energy, material technology, — every firm is not an internet start-up getting $1MM+ in funding mostly from Lightbank — and even in the world of IT, we had a story that was under-covered — the sale of Initiate Systems to IBM in which, as I understand it, IBM made full use of their technology but how on earth did I miss this story: Advanced Life Sciences suspended operations in May of this year, and for Pete’s sake, just a month before that, I was brow beating Dick Reck, Tom Thornton, Terry Osborn, and Scott Meadow who were board members at ALS; and the company was considered at one point to be a jewel in the crown of Chicago biotech and life sciences, so now I have to investigate what happened and thankfully, I do have some knowledgeable sources here; Tarkus Murphy on “Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs …. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism.” HST – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; momo-chicago lives!

The May Report November 2nd, 2011

Archive for November, 2011

The May Report: 11/11/2011: Once in a century!: The eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year — we won’t see it again until 11/11/2111 — so the rush job and three more reports to come today

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