Rockin' Robin: Robin Goldfarb Wilensky's Weblog

Hello all,

I'm sorry to report that I have been impacted by the recent reduction in force at Sun Microsystems. For all my loyal followers, I hope that you will continue to read about Sun in the Web 2.0 space and other cool initiatives that Sun is involved in.

You may find me on LinkedIn or on Facebook (search for Robin Goldfarb Wilensky). You may also choose to follow me on twitter or subscribe to one of my other blogs:

Education 2.0 - A blog for all things related to technology and education.

Kinderguarded - A blog for all things related to online safety.

Take care. I'm sure I'll see you around the blogosphere.

-Robin Wilensky

Yesterday, I attended a Sun-sponsored event headed up by UltraLightStartup.com. They are an organization that hosts Entrepreneur forums for Ultra Light Startups. What is an Ultra Light Startup? I wondered the same thing. According to their website, an Ultra Light Startup is one that:

• Aims to achieve profitability with little or no external funding
  
• Has low permanent headcount, low overhead, low budget
  
• Operates as ‘virtual enterprises’ (outsourcing, partnerships)
  
• Uses off-the-shelf and open-source software and platforms rather than build from scratch
  Uses cloud/network computing rather than owning hardware
  
• Maximizes efficient use of viral/guerrilla/social marketing
  
• Uses any other low-cost, high-flexibility techniques
  

The format of the forum is about an hour's worth of 60-second pitches by each of the Entrepreneurs in the room, Pizza & networking, a quick word from the sponsors (that's where I came in) and a panel discussion revolving around a particular topic. Yesterday's topic was Web Analytics.

So, of course, I spoke briefly about the Sun Web Analytics Solution. I also introduced other solutions that might be interesting for future meetings. These included Sun Startup Essentials, Cloud Computing, open source projects like Social Site, Zembly, WebSynergy, and Wonderland, and the whole xVM suite of products. Feel free to download my presentation for more detail.

I also wanted to highlight some of the more interesting pitches that I heard last night. I'd say there were about 40 pitches presented but obviously that's too many to list here. Here is my top ten list:

1. BabyNameWizard - gets first listing because it had the most hits and won first prize.
   
2. SlipFire - Wordpress SEO & design consulting. They also sponsor WordCamp.
   
3. Marketers Anonymous - Brand marketing consulting.
   
4. DubFiler - File sharing for musicians.
   
5. SEODrop - SEO Analysis.
   
6. RezRedo - Resume consulting and career searches.
   
7. Boomerater - Online advice for Baby Boomers.
   
8. Mobilestead - iPhone applications for hotels.
   
9. Fine and Raw - Fine and raw chocolates from around the world.
   
10. VeeJay - YouTube meets MTV.
    
11. Groupable - Helps groups get sponsors.
    
12. ProCompare - Review of business products.
    
13. RealOptimal - Viral optimization.
    
14. The Factionist - Clothing and products for the ethically conscious.
    
15. Growing Venture Solutions - Drupal consulting.
    
16. Noo.com - Find events and experiences.
    

Ok, I couldn't limit it to 10. So, it's my top 16 list.

Overall, I think the event was quite successful and I look forward to future networking opportunities.

GHC 2007
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

Session/Event:Mentoring Makes MAGIC for Middle & High School Girls (Day 1, Session 6)

Commentary:
The format of this entry will be slightly different as this was our BOF & therefore my notes are more reflective of action items then content.

• Question arose about a formal structure. Need to set guidelines.
  
• Less schools - same goal.
  
• With "Girls Get IT" at Cisco Systems, they dive down to Elementary School. Parents have such fear about online predators, esp. as it relates to eMentoring.
  
• Lego MindStorms (Robots) - using this to mentor elementary school kids through Canadian University. Got an NSERK grant (like NSF).
  
• International telemarketing program - other mentoring program.
  
• Training -> should meetin in person cross communities.
  
• Forum - secure online once it grows.
  
• How are we defining success? Propose attitude surveys (before/after).
  
• Need someone with expertise in legalities of working with children.
  
• Consider writing "real" letters, etc... - what are the security implications of this? Not traceable/recoverable (Trust vs. Trace issues)...
  
• Have HS or college students help mentor middle school students.
  
• Check out WITI & professional business women's conference
  
• Don't try to tackle too much. Technology later.
  

Pictures from our BOF:

Hi there,


As you can see there has been a big lag in the time since I have updated my blog. I apologize for that. The main reason for the delay was that I was heads down preparing for an EBC visit in Burlington, MA. For those of you that don't know what an EBC visit is: It's basically a place to bring customers off-site and show off Sun. The EBC in Menlo Park is beautiful and is a great place to go if you are new to Sun and want to learn more about our products & services we offer and really "drink the kool-aid". The Burlington center is located at our East Coast hub and while it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of California, it can still make a huge impact. This is where we went on Friday.



The customer that I hosted is a large insurance company and they were interested in discussing several of our software components. This included Identity Management, Collaboration & Business Integration. They also wanted to learn about Sun's future vision so we included the infamous SunLabs as part of the agenda. Overall, the day was a huge success. Not only did we uncover several opportunities to help each other in the areas listed above, but we also began to explore their interests in virtualization technologies, new systems and storage needs.



As the Systems Engineer covering this particular account for many years, I helped organize the agenda, prepare the speakers and also presented & demo'd the Collaboration topic with a colleague. For fun and because you might not know what we are doing in the area of Collaboration (it's more than you think!), I'm attaching the preso's here. Due to size contraints the main preso is in 2 parts.

• Collaboration Offerings Part 1
  
• Collaboration Offerings Part 2
  
• Screenshots of Demo and Resources Demo
  

I hope that you find these documents useful. Feel free to add any comments or questions below and I'm happy to respond. Have a wonderful day! Try to stay warm... [It's below zero in NY today!!!]


-Robin

Hi all,
Ok, well, it's been a while since my last blog but I'm going to try to get back into this on a more regular basis. You know that December is always a busy month trying to close deals not to mention all of that holiday excitement. But, now it's time to buckle down. So, hope you all had a great holiday season. Here we go again...
-Robin

Hi everyone, I just created this blog and I am writing my first post! Yippee... Today's words of advice: Go check out Jonathan's Sun on Wall Street webcast at http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/features/wallstreet.html It's chock full of Kool-Aid! See you soon, Robin