Back on October 20, I was out in Phoenix, AZ to speak on a panel at the Consumer Electronics Association Industry Forum as the advertising agency voice on a panel entitled Social Media and Business: Where’s the Money? The panel, moderated by Jesse Thomas and with Kelley Feller, was recorded by the CEA and is available here or with the player below.

Lots of talk about social media strategy, objective setting, sales funnel, measurement and, of course, scalability.

On October 7, I had the pleasure of speaking at Microsoft BizSpark Incubation Week for Windows 7 at the Microsoft Technology Center.  I gave a presentation entitled “Out-Think | Marketing Start-ups, From The Ground Up,” which reviews the basics of branding both B2B and B2C start-ups.

Out-Think is my philosophy that smart and sound strategy and positioning (out-thinking) is the key to battling against competitors who can out-spend your brand or company.  We also spoke about social media basics and the importance of creating an easy-to-remember value proposition to communicate to their consumers.

Out-Think | Marketing Start-ups, From The Ground Up

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I spoke with a wonderful group of very impressive start-ups, who are hard at work, learning about some of the unique features of Windows 7 and drawing from Microsoft’s off-shore developers to get their products up and running!  The start-ups are surely worth checking out at their respective websites:

1. AnswerPoint Medical Systems
2. Baydin
3. BumpTop
4. Panopto
5. SocialGrow

My presentation was also recorded using Panopto, which will pair audio/video with the presentations I gave and be available here as soon as I have it ready to go.

This past April, I had the pleasure of speaking at Microsoft’s 2nd CRM Incubation Week, where an elite group of startups had the opportunity to leverage Microsoft’s resources to build next generation business solutions on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Platform.

Now, on October 7th, I’ll be returning to Microsoft to speak to a new group of startups who will be building applications based on some of the unique features of Windows 7, during Boston’s Microsoft BizSpark Incubation Week for Windows 7. I’ll be speaking about building start-up brands and how to use Web 2.0 and social media tools to promote them.

Looking forward to meeting all of the participating start-ups there and sharing some actionable insights.

After a summer of very intensive and all-consuming work with Oxford Communications in Lambertville, NJ, I’m looking forward to returning to speaking more often this fall upon my return to Boston.

I’ll be speaking out in Phoenix, AZ on October 20th at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Association Industry Forum as the agency voice on a panel entitled Social Media and Business: Where’s the Money?

I’m also looking forward to attending some of the other sessions and events during the forum—especially since it serves as the launching point for iStage, which is a competition between all of the hottest new developments from start-ups and established companies alike.  The winner gets a space and lots of attention at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas come winter.

On April 23, I had the pleasure of speaking to lots of promising start-ups at Microsoft’s CRM Incubation Week, where leading start-ups had the chance to tap into Microsoft’s resources to build next generation business solutions on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Platform.  There were certainly some interesting projects being developed when I popped in for my session!

I joined the teams to speak about the power of the ability to OUT-THINK (rather than out-spend).  We talked about how to build a brand as a start-up and how to use Web 2.0 and social media tools to execute on a brand promise and support a newly developed solution.  A big thank you to all the wonderful people I met and to Microsoft for having me and sending me off with a very nice, MIcrosoft Dynamics CRM backpac

On April 8, 2009, I was had a wonderful time speaking at WIND/North to an audience of about 70 people eager to jump-start their personal brands as they transition to new career paths.  

The organizer, Fred Nothnagel, had enjoyed seeing “How We All Became Elvis” so much that he asked me to speak from that deck, shown below or on my SlideShare.net profile.

How We All Became Elvis: A Note On Online Personal Branding

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I had a wonderful time hosting the Mobile Marketing Roundtable on behalf of Pongr yesterday.  We had a great group of attendees around the table to participate in the conversation.  Thank you to those of you who attended for a great time and really interesting conversation!

If you are interested in being invited to a future Mobile Marketing Roundtable, please feel free to be in touch at MMR [at] ben-grossman [dot] com.  We’re looking forward to hosting more roundtables in the future focused on keeping up with, innovating, and connecting the mobile marketing industry.  If you’d like to get a taste of where we started today, you can check out and comment on the presentation I gave pre-conversation.  The folks over at SlideShare were nice enough to dub it a ’Presentation SuperStar’ and are featuring it on their homepage today.

Mobile Marketing Mystery
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Hope to see you at a future event!

I’m really looking forward to hosting the Mobile Marketing Roundtable on March 31st.  I’m currently in the process of composing the presentation, entitled Mobile Marketing Mystery, which I will give to kick off the event.  My hope is that, with the help of some top notch people, whom I consider stakeholders in the future of mobile marketing, we are able to solve the mobile marketing mystery during a lively roundtable discussion.

The event is currently by invitation only, but if you are interested in attending this event or a future one, e-mail me.  

Here are the details about the event from Eventbrite:

THE CONCEPT

The concept behind the Mobile Marketing Roundtable is quite simple: gather those who have the most invested in and the most to gain by innovating mobile marketing around a table and talk.  Of course, we want the conversation that ensues to be a productive and meaningful experience for everyone present, so we’re picking and choosing those we invite so that we have the resources to make our utopian future of mobile marketing a reality.

WHO’S INVITED

We’re inviting industry movers and shakers who are responsible for agency innovation, publishing, brand management, and mobile technology development.  In order to manage the size and quality of the event, the Mobile Marketing Roundtable is currently an invite-only event.  If you would like an invitation or are interested in future events, feel free to send us a note at MMR [at] ben-grossman [dot] com.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN

While you enjoy a tasty (and free) catered lunch, your host, Ben Grossman, will give a mobile marketing industry overview.  The overview and discussion will include compelling information about the rise of mobile as an opportunity for marketers and brands, along with a short analysis of available technology in the space (including a first look at and demo of some new technology from our gracious sponsor, Pongr).  

Then, the roundtable begins.  Guests will have an open floor to float their mobile marketing ideas, apprehensions, and inquiries.  However, we’re hoping the main discussion topic will be mobile marketing solutions.  What do marketers need in order to make our mobile marketing utopias a reality?  How can we get there and who needs to be involved?  Does the technology we’ve talked about come close or fit the bill?

QUESTIONS?

If you have a question about the Mobile Marketing Roundtable or Pongr, please feel free to send us a note at MMR [at] ben-grossman [dot] com or give us a call at +1.617.938.3505.  

If you are attending the event and would like to meet with Pongr privately, please be in touch.  We will be available on the day of the event and/or would be happy to schedule a meeting on a separate occasion.

On the evening of February 26, 2009, I was asked by my good friend Ken Mattsson to speak to the Boston Association of Career Professionals about online personal branding.  Below is the deck I presented.  It was geared towards social networking newbies, but has valuable lessons and reminders for all of us who live any part of our lives online.

How We All Became Elvis: A Note On Online Personal Branding

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As social media becomes increasingly mainstream, everyone is asking how it’s currently affecting and going to impact relationships both online and offline.  I was asked to talk about just that subject along with fellow panelists,  Christine Major, Thomas Edwards and Diane Darling during my second appearance on Leslie Poston’s wonderful podcast, Topics on Fire.  It was a lively discussion filled with some great information!  If you’d like to take a listen, you can do so here:

Topics on Fire, Episode 13: Social Media and Relationships took place on February 8, 2009 and produced a useful body of best practices and points of interest surrounding how to handle personal, professional, and even romantic relationships in the Social Media age.