Category: On entrepreneurship

My entrepreneurship

Knight Arts Challenge in Philadelphia: my seven submissions

Today is the deadline to put 150 words together that could help change the direction of arts in Philadelphia.

The Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia is a three-year, $9 million initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. We’re seeking the best ideas in the arts. We’re investing $9 million, to be matched by other funders, to impact the arts in your hometown. We are seeking the most innovative ideas in the arts to inspire and enrich Philadelphia’s communities. [Source]

Philadelphia is just the second city in which Knight is running this arts challenge, following the foundation’s home of Miami. Get your questions answered here or submit here.

On a train ride home, I brainstormed a dozen ideas for the arts challenge, seven of which I thought were clear and concise enough that they’d be worth submitting. While only a couple directly relate to my work with technology community news site Technically Philly, as venture capitalist Fred Wilson recently wrote (H/T Karl Martino), there is great cross over between a maturing creative economy and an aged arts world.

So, I find it relevant to share what I’ve submitted, which I will do below.

Continue reading Knight Arts Challenge in Philadelphia: my seven submissions

Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Fund awards grants to Technically Philly and NEast Philly

I’m proud to say that I’ll have a small part in three of the fourteen inaugural reporting projects funded by the Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Fund, as announced Tuesday.

Funded by the William Penn Foundation and administered by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, a center of American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C, the $5,000 micro-grant awardees were based on recommendations from an April 2010 report by J-Lab.

Continue reading Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Fund awards grants to Technically Philly and NEast Philly

Technically Philly directory launches, more updates to come

Today, Technically Philly has announced its directory.

Directories are normally pretty boring. We think ours won’t be.

It’s certainly a small step, but, leveraging WordPress custom taxonomies with some incredible thinking power of Sean Blanda and plenty of sweat equity from myself and Brian James Kirk, we have launched pages for the nearly 1,000 companies and almost as many individuals we’ve covered at Technically Philly in the past two years.

Continue reading Technically Philly directory launches, more updates to come

New Yorker profile of Nick Denton dives into online news profit

Earlier this month, the New Yorker had a big profile of Nick Denton, who famously launched in 2002 national blog network Gawker Media. It’s interesting, of course, for its personality, but I was drawn most to a few grafs focusing on news profitability.

Check out the profile in its entirety — or another recent big profile on him from New York Magazine — but below, find my favorite sections.

Continue reading New Yorker profile of Nick Denton dives into online news profit

Switch Philly: a roundup after the first major, paid Technically Philly event

The speakers at the first Switch Philly, held Oct. 6, 2010, from left: Deana Zelenka, Zecozi; Steve Barsh, Packlate; Geoff DiMasi, P'unk Ave; Josh Marcus, Azavea; Greg Wilder, Myna Music

As I first shared last month, we at Technically Philly last week hosted Switch Philly, a tech demo event that we hope to host with some regularity and served as our first major, paid event.

It is the first in a series of events that a big part of making TP a sustainable business.

On the night of one of the most meaningful playoff baseball games in the sport’s history, we welcomed 170 people into the historic Levitt Auditorium of Gershman Hall at University of the Arts to hear five local companies pitch their latest, greatest innovation in just seven minutes, with no PowerPoint presentations allowed — though we made an exception.

That crowd included Councilman Bill Green, Inquirer columnist Mike Armstrong, RobinHood Ventures co-founder Ellen Weber, Genacast Ventures Managing Partner Gil Beyda, Independents Hall co-founder Alex Hillman and dozens more venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, journalists community leaders and more.

It was — for a tech business demo event — fast-moving, crowded and inspiring for the continued acknowledgment of this region’s technology community. We hope to have our next in early 2011.

Below, find a roundup of the successful event, including video, media coverage and more.

Continue reading Switch Philly: a roundup after the first major, paid Technically Philly event

PhillyChitChat on Tek Lado launch party, posing shamelessly with Geekadelphia crew

Technically Philly is a media partner of Tek Lado, the Hispanic pop culture mag from Southwest Philly publisher Bartash.

Recently the magazine held its kickoff party, and I came to see my former editor Liz Spikol, mingle, eat guacamole and, mostly importantly, end up in a vanity shot from Hugh E. Dillon, Philly’s favorite and, hell, probably only paparazzi.

He runs a cool blog called PhillyChitChat following the events he ends up at around town.

Switch Philly: the startup presentation event from Technically Philly

We’ve always said a niche news site has to look beyond advertising. We at Technically Philly have toed the water of events before. Well, we’re jumping all the way in now.

Earlier this month, we announced Switch Philly, a new business presentation event where five local companies will each offer entertaining seven-minute demos of their new products. Find TP coverage of our event here.

The event will be held Oct. 6, 2010 at 6 p.m. inside the Levitt Auditorium of the University of the Arts at Broad and Pine streets in Center City Philadelphia. Tickets for $9 can be purchased here — which helps us throw on the event, have others in the future and supports a niche news effort.

Much of the coverage goes to my colleague Sean Blanda, who is leading this initiative for TP.

The presenting companies at the inaugural Switch will be the following:

  • Azavea, the GIS-software firm based in the Callowhill neighborhood, will present sustainably-minded mapping and direction application CommonSpace.
  • P’unk Ave, the Passyunk Square-based web development company, will share innovative content management system Apostrophe.
  • Orpheus Media Research, the Old City tonal research project, will share music comparison software Myna.
  • Zecvozi, the stealth Northern Liberties sustainability tracking company, will launch at the event.
  • Packlate, the West Conshohocken discount vacation planning startup, will share its new deal-finding search engine.

Find the official press release here [PDF].

Businessweek on Henry Blodget: Passages on the future of news sites

I dug into this Business Week profile of Henry Blodget from the the Business Insider a few weeks ago.

Blodget is the editor of TBI — a business and technology aggregation and content site dubbed the ‘hooters of the internet’ — after being forced out of a financial analyst career for fraud allegations.

I wanted to share two passages from the piece that spoke widely to discussions around the future of news.

Continue reading Businessweek on Henry Blodget: Passages on the future of news sites

Those are similar ledes: faint praise from the Philly Business Journal

Hey, ledes are often pretty formulaic. That much we know.

We also know that Technically Philly has aspired to grow more broader coverage of its community.

Now, they may not be the same and there may likely be no influence; I just thought this was quaint. Honestly, what it may best show is that we’re on the right path with Technically Philly.

From a former colleague and friend Peter Key:

If a lot of extremely strangely dressed people start showing up in the area in the next few months, it could be a sign that philanthropy in the region is increasing.  — Philadelphia Business Journal lede on July 9, 2010

From a current colleague and friend Sean Blanda:

If you see DunkTank co-founder Blake Jennelle walking around Center City with a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and a fake beard, rest assured he hasn’t gone completely crazy. — Technically Philly lede on June 17, 2010

Nonprofits breaking news about their mission

If you have a mission, nonprofit or otherwise, you ought to have a voice in your mission.

On the Back on My Feet blog, we don’t do enough of it, but when issues surrounding homelessness come up, we are sure to share them with our readers.

So when the very big news of the country’s first national report on homelessness was published and was part of a call to end homelessness in five years, we certainly shared it promptly, following our primary source of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.

That happened June 25, so I was certainly interested to see the first mention in Philadelphia of that big report come by way of an editorial from the beleaguered Inquirer on July 5.

That’s a startup nonprofit feeding important industry news to its supporters before news media. Note the obvious trend.