Sun Startup Essentials - A big hand for your business ideas from stewart townsend on Vimeo.

How can Sun Startup Essentials help you ? Watch this and see how Sun can help your small business with it's Startup Essentials programme http://sun.com/startups

Do you want to know where I will be on November 17th, Im going to be at the O2 Indigo, not hanging out trying to get signatures of the latest bands but at the #140conf London event, more details below but with Stephen Fry on the bill its going to be a fantastic day and if you want to attend as a Sun Startup Essential member you get 40% discount. Yep 40%....

The 140 Characters Conference: London will be taking place on 17 November at the O2 Indigo.

The schedule for #140conf: London offers 50+ speakers in 27 fast sessions during the course of just one day.

At the #140conf events, we look at twitter as a platform and as a language we speak. In London we will be exploring the effects of the real-time Internet on Business. Overall we will be exploring the systemic effects the worldwide adoption twitter is having on business.

Some of the topics we will cover at #140conf London include: Racism as a Resource; Sky News: Twitter, Reputation and #iranelection; twitter and Brands, twitter and Education, twitter and Media, twitter and Small Business, twitter and Sports, twitter and The Police, twitter and TV, twitter and Music.

Please review the videos from the NYC event to get a feel of the pace of the event and the content shared

It is our intention to provide a platform for as many people as possible to share their thoughts and engage in conversation with the attending delegates. You will find individual talks set to: 10 minutes; “Featured talks” 15 and 20 minutes and the various panel discussions are set for 15 and 20 minutes.

Speakers include special guest Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) together with:

Alex Bellinger (@alexbellinger) - Journalist; Founder, SmallBizPod
Andrew Davis (@andrew_davis)
Andrew Keen (@ajkeen) - Author, Cult of The Amateur: How the Internet is Killing our Culture
Babs Rangaiah (@babs26) - Vice President, Global Comms Planning, Unilever
Becky McCray (@BeckyMcCray) - Founder, Small Biz Survival
Boyd Hilton (@boydhilton) - TV Editor for Heat Magazine
Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) - President, New Marketing Labs
Ciaran Norris (@ciaranj) - Director Invention/SocialMedia8
David White (@daveowhite) - Chair
Dean Landsman (@DeanLand)
Digital Maverick (@digitalmaverick) - Learning technologist, Moodle evangelist
Ebony Rhiney-James (@EbonyRJ) - Digital Marketing Manager at Warner Music Group
Federico Grosso (@federicogrosso)
Gerd Leonhard (@gleonhard) - Media Futurist, Author, Blogger
Heather Gorringe (@wiggled) - Founder, Wiggly Wigglers
James Poulter (@jamespoulter) - Digital Strategist for Ogilvy PR
Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver), twitter investor, creator of #140conf
Jeffrey Hayzlett (@JeffreyHayzlett) - CMO, Kodak
Jonathan Almond (@jonalmond)
Josie Fraser (@josiefraser) - Social & Educational Technologist
Kathleen Hessert (@kathleenhessert) - CEO, Sports Media Challenge
Kyra Gaunt, Ph.D. (@kyraocity) - Associate Professor of Music and Anthropology, Baruch College-CUNY, writer, blogger
Lauri Stevens (@lawscomm)
Manny Norte (@mannynorte) - Kiss FM
Marsha Collier (@MarshaCollier) - Author, Ebay for Dummies; Radio Host
Maz Nadjm (@Mazi) - Responsible for social networking at Sky Television, sky.com
Nick Halstead (@nickhalstead) - CEO, TweetMeme
Nick Keane (@nickkeane)
Pamela O'Hara (@pmohara) - Co-founder, Batch Blue
Peter Gregson (@petergregson) - Cellist and Co-founder of the Production Company Coffeeloop
Ray Paul (@raypaulbbc) - Executive Producer for Weekend Programs at BBC Radio 1
Roberto Bonanzinga (@Bonanzinga) - Balderton Capital
Saul Klein (@cape) - Index Ventures
Sean Seton-Rogers (@setonrog) - PROfounders Capital
Sherry J. Bitting (@SJBRules) - Co-founder and Marketing Director, Parlour Magazine
Shirley Williams (@shirleyearley)
Stephen Fry (@stephenfry)
Steve Saul (@stephensaul) - Social media/blogger for Simon Cowell's X-Factor
Sue Black (@Dr_Black)
Tal Givoly (@givoly) - Chief Scientist, Amdocs
Tim Bradshaw (@tim) - Digital media correspondent, Financial Times
Vikki Chowney (@vikkichowney) - Editor of Reputation Online, Centau Media

The take aways from this event will provide the attending delegates knowledge, perspectives and insights to the next wave of effects twitter and the real-tme internet will have on business.

As Sun Startup Essentials is a friend of Jeffs we have a lovely discount for you, save 40% on a Delegate Ticket up until 15 November or until tickets last. 

Click here to register:

SmallBizPod is a podcast, blog, news and community site for small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs. This is how it all happened.

Back in March 2005, Alex Bellinger became one of only a handful of people in the UK to start podcasting.

Looking around for a subject he realised there were no British-based podcasts on business. Since he had just set up his own business and had spent many years focusing on the small business sector, a podcast on entrepreneurship seemed like a good way to go.

SmallBizPod was born. The podcast, blog and website now attract tens of thousands of listeners and readers a month from all over the world.

Inspire, Inform, Entertain

From the start SmallBizPod has been there to inspire, to inform, and to be fun to listen to and read as well. I think thanks to some wonderful contributors and interviewees, it's achieved just that.

Over time, the site has grown to become one of the most visited sites for SMEs in the UK. It's also developed into a wonderful free audio resource to provide inspiration and advice from business people with real experience and real insight.

Take the time to listen to some inspiring interviews from some renowned people on subjects such as marketing, business advice, funding and many more, the beauty is that these are free and really insighful and great to hear that not just you in that Startup boat alone.

Visit http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/  now and keep an update on the latest podcasts.

Bonjour Séverin, peux-tu te présenter ?

Bonjour Laurent ! Entrepreneur du web depuis 2006, je m'appelle Séverin Benizri et je suis fondateur de la société Paris Labs qui édite des plateformes de réseaux sociaux, notamment le service Helia.fr. J'ai un parcours un peu hybride entre le commercial et la technique, comme beaucoup de monde dans ce secteur.

Que fait Helia ?

Helia est un réseau social professionnel qui encourage le partage d'expérience entre des internautes qui ont des affinités pour le même métier ou les mêmes entreprises. Helia propose également des outils de communication aux entreprises qui souhaitent maîtriser leur réputation sur le Web. D'ici à la fin de l'année, il y aura des informations à jour sur plus de 500.000 entreprises sur Helia, des actualités et des offres d'emploi.

Pourquoi as-tu adhéré au programme Sun Startup Essentials ?

Nous étions très impliqués dans le développement Java. Il nous a paru naturel de nous associer à la maison mère... Le programme présentait de belles opportunités aussi bien dans le domaine du conseil que dans l'acquisition de matériel informatique.

Quelles technologies Sun utilises-tu ?

Aujourd'hui, nous travaillons avec des ingénieurs Sun sur une migration vers OpenSolaris afin d'utiliser ZFS, la virtualisation avec les zones Solaris et GlassFish.

Pourquoi as-tu choisi d'installer OpenSolaris sur une Dedibox ?

Aujourd'hui, Dedibox propose un bon rapport qualité/prix qui correspond à nos besoins actuels d'hébergement. Nous voulions explorer les possibilités d'OpenSolaris sans pour autant changer de fournisseur de services dans un premier temps. En revanche, nous nous intéressons de près aux serveurs Sun, notamment aux processeurs SPARC.

Comment s'est passée l'installation ?

Après avoir envoyé le DVD d'OpenSolaris aux équipes Dedibox, nous avons obtenu un accès VNC (partage d'écran) sur notre serveur pour procéder à l'installation. L'installation s'est déroulée sans problème, tout le matériel ayant été reconnu avec des pilotes adaptés dans la distribution Sun !
Ensuite, avec l'aide d'un ingénieur de Sun, Amir Javanshir, nous avons pu configurer le serveur pour qu'il héberge notre service. Après quelques adaptations et configurations des principaux outils, notre service était dupliqué sur l'environnement OpenSolaris. 

Quelles sont les prochaines étapes pour toi ?

Nous sommes en train de d'effectuer des tests fonctionnels et de performance sur les différentes architectures. Parallèlement, nous faisons évoluer notre technologie vers une architecture plus modulaire (OSGi). Notre objectif est d'héberger la nouvelle version de la technologie sur un serveur Sun avec l'environnement OpenSolaris à T1-2010.

Merci Séverin et bon courage pour la suite !

Pour en savoir plus, vous pouvez envoyer un email à severin.benizri@parislabs.net

The other day I was one of the lucky few with the opportunity to attend the Media140 Branding event over at RIBA in London.  The event was aimed at media professionals and the majority of the audience were PR agencies and branding professionals.


Having spoken to a number of the attendees I would have to say there were as many experts in the audience with interesting things to say on Branding, building a brand and representing the brand on Twitter and related tools as there were on stage.   The content that was provided on the stage was only a small part of what was actually shared and the #media140 twitter stream provided a raft of additional conversation and content. 

So what came up at the event... And what did not... Here's a few of my notes:

Startup Weekend London - Sun Startup Essential Members Discount Tickets 25% off - A special startup weekend, 54 hour startup event that provides the resourcs and incentives for individuals and teams to go from idea to launch. Find out more now and read up on all the aspects of the weekend HERE

But first please check out the exciting news :

Busy entrepreneurs need to stay on top of all the latest startup information, but who has the time? Here's a look at what went on around blogosphere and in the news last week, in case you missed it.

Are advisory boards a good or bad idea for startups? Entrepreneur-turned-VC Mark Suster says that depends on your goals.

All the advice from startup industry analysts who recommend entrepreneurs consider starting new green-tech business aren't just spouting rhetoric. Finance mogul George Soros recently committed a whopping $1 billion to the clean-tech startup sector.

Do you have trouble balancing work and home life? Do you love the art of the deal? Are you addicted to pursuing the next big opportunity? You may be an entre-holic.

Some startups don't need barrels of money to get off the ground. If you're a U.S.-based business looking for a micro-loan, there's a good chance Kiva.org can help.

Startups looking to raise capital sometimes hire finders to help them out. If this is something you're considering, “We can’t find investors on our own� isn't a good enough reason to go this route.

Flickr image courtesy of angermann.

 Do you want to attend Social Media 09 ? - http://socialmedia09.com/

More details below, but with 

6 speakers
14 case studies
8 demos & 1 tools overview

with Sarah Beeny and Chris Thorpe on the agenda its going to be an informative interesting discussion based event.

Make sure you are a Sun Startup Essential Member and get a 20% discount on this great event now - http://sun.com/startups

Tuesday November 10th 6.00 PM till late

Sun CBC London

Tickets are free and are available here:



Tuesday 10th November at Sun Microsystems’ Customer Briefing Centre in London. 6pm for pizza and beer kindly provided by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials team. The event will be developer and startup-centric with the content best suited to people who are already developing applications on top of Twitter or who intend to start building a Twitter application in the near future. At 9pm we head down to the pub conveniently located directly underneath the briefing centre.

Nest Building

    * What next for devnest? What we can do in between meetings, to foster community, to lobby for governance, and to build great products and services (Angus Fox, Multizone Limited, @nuxnix)

140 second demo/presentation

Show and tell, 140 seconds countdown. Dont go over!

    *
    * @ollieparsley - Hootmonitor
    * @benoitx - Spotify.Chart.info
    * @rem - Snapbird

      Sign up on the night or DM @nuxnix to secure your slot

A special Guest industry luminary in person or via hi tech real time high definition conferencing

    * We could tell you who, but we’d be lying..

Hatchery opens its doors to a fast paced New York style pitch event.

Hatchery style honesty. In ways others may be too polite to share. It will be what you need to hear about your startup covering marketing, finance, technology, business, presentation.....

This has been the Hatchery Dry Run process initiated to all Hatchery companies chosen for the main event. We are opening to everyone.

Review committee:
David Blumenstein - Managing Partner, Hatchery
Jay Levy - Principal, Zelkova Ventures
Bill Reinisch - XIV River Consulting
Scott Gingold - CEO, Power Feedback

What's the point?
1. A chance to pitch at the main event
2. Pitching practice
3. Honest feedback about your company

SIGN UP HERE

Join us in celebrating the launch of Enternships.com during Global Entrepreneurship Week in style with the company of 900 entrepreneurs / SME's / investors / advisors / press / entrepreneurial students and graduates for a night of mingling with mojitos, speed networking, live entertainment (magicians, a cuban band, cocktail mixology lessons, Salsa lessons, Top DJs + more...) all until the early hours of the morning. You'll even leave with your very own Enternships goody bag!

The Sun Startup Essentials team and supporters will be running mini masterclasses on marketing, sales channels and brand strategy throughout the day, not as exciting as magicians but will help your business grow.

It's taking place from 7pm (until 2am) on Tuesday 17th November  at Floridita, 100 Wardour Street, London W1F 0TN. Tickets are normally £20 (those magicians don't grow on trees, you know) but for the first 100 Sun Startup Essential members its FREE, yes I said FREE indeed.

If you would like to go then sign up here for a ticket - http://enternships.eventbrite.com/ , if you are a SSE member you will get your FREE code in the newsletter next week so wait till then and the whole Startup Essentials team will be there to greet you and say hi.

VIP Invitation to the exclusive Insider Secrets breakfast with Greg Dyke


We are pleased to be a host to an unusual breakfast session and I am delighted to invite you to it.

The breakfast setting is going to be interactive, challenging, stimulating and driven by the audience.

on

Date:             Thursday, 22nd October 2009
Time:             8 am to 10 am
At:                 Sun Customer briefing Centre

To get tickets at SSE Member rate please go here now  - SSE MEMBERS ONLY PRICING

There's no room here to list in detail what Greg did that prompted literally thousands of BBC people to take to the streets in protest when he had to resign from the BBC, causing "men, women and even journalists to cry" and flooding his inbox with 6,000 emails from BBC people, most of which said how upset they were that he was going.

Greg was Director General of the BBC and is now the Chairman of the British Film Institute, Chairman of Brentford football club and also Chancellor of York University.  He also was one of the original architects of the Premier League in his days with LWT.  He has changed the face of British Television and British football whilst introducing a new no-nonsense direct style of inspirational leadership.

In his typical direct no-nonsense, impatient style Greg will take on the challenges from the audience and share his nuggets of insights. 

These are the 5 areas he will span:

1.             The "Berlin Wall" moment for Democracy - His unique perspective on Public service reform and transformation of Democracy is that we are heading to a "Berlin Wall" moment that will change the course of politics
2.             Leadership in a crisis - is the outlook less bleak?  he has his own brand of leadership advice for entrepreneurs, corporate and public service leaders as they prepare to come out of the current crisis.
3.             Learning from shambles - the ITV mess provides a number of fabulous lessons for the choice of Board, the relationship between CEO and Chairman
4.             GAME changing innovations: Greg created BBC Freeview that changed British television and 20 years ago created the Premier League which has transformed the face of British football. 
5.             What next for the British Film Industry -  how can new technologies like the internet be monetised to the advantage of the film industry and not just the pirates.

It is an unusual opportunity as Greg does not do sessions like these very often.  He does get called to do his set speeches but speaking directly from what he is passionate about and responding interactively to the challenging and confronting questions in public will be the juicy part of this breakfast. So definitely, keep your questions ready.

There are only a few spots still available as we like to maintain the intimate interactive style of these breakfasts. 

We look forward to seeing you there.

Sun's Startup Essentials team was hosting a Chillout lounge  at the Future of Web Apps
London, where 750 attendees from across the globe came to hear the  founders of digg and winelibrary
inform people on how to build a multi million startup and make sure it is marketed well.

Amongst all this information digest, the SSE team were talking, informing and hosting our own talks
to the attendees Matt Hosanee gave a talk alongside James Proud form Giglocator on scaling your
startup on a bootstrapped financial model, and myself Stewart Towsend gave a talk on SSE in general
and how we have helped tweetmeme grow from a 2 person company to over 10 employees and 85% growth
month on month.

For a flavour of the event, check out to see how busy the Sun area got go HERE

And if you want to know what people had to say about it go HERE