OSCON report

We should have first person reports soon about OSCON (Open Source Conference) from the CVG member, OpenSource Connections. Eric, please tell us more!

UPDATE: more from Eric at OpenSource Connections.

Meanwhile, if you enjoyed the recent NY Times piece, When Amateurs Roamed the Earth, you'll appreciate Tim O'Reilly's post.

Technorati Tags: open source, rugby

Call for Business Plans

The Charlottesville Venture Group is accepting business plans for review until August 10.

"Our intent is for every Certified Business Plan to be assured of an earnest review and consideration by a number of qualified investment sources. We have arranged for a “fast path” with some VC’s and Angel Clubs in the Mid-Atlantic Region. This process will vault you to the head-of-the-line for consideration!"

The CVG Business Plan Review program is sponsored by the Virginia Active Angel Network, LeClair Ryan and the UVA Virginia Gateway.

Technorati Tags: business plans

The BGN Entrepreneur's Minute July 27, 2006

(About one minute)

A quick look at some business competitions coming up:

Inc. Magazine's 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year nominations are open.

The Innocentive.com challenges in biology and chemistry.

The Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation nominations due by August 15.
Virginia Social Ventures of Norfolk.

The Innovation Challenge team registration opens August 21.

The BGN Entrepreneur's Minute is made possible by the Robins School of Business.

Technorati Tags: business competitions, social ventures

Managing a Digital Enterprise

Following Dr. Tate's CVG presentation on managing a virtual multi-cultural enterprise, you may be interested in Michael Rappa's online course, Managing the Digital Enterprise.
This course , updated to 2006, won a MERLOT classic award in 2003.
MERLOT stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching.

MERLOT was created in 1999 by the California State University System, and developed further in partnership with the University of North Carolina. In 2000, other institutions were invited to participate. The Virginia Community College System is now a system partner.

Technorati Tags: distance learning, entrepreneurship

A Better Phonebook - OpenDNS

A new DNS service, OpenDNS, offers blocking of fraudulent "phishing"sites plus faster web site loading with frequently refreshed, intelligent caching. The service also corrects common errors in entering URL's, reducing errors due to typos.

OpenDNS offers this free new service through an advertisement-supported business model, placing ads on the error/search page displayed when the page entered by the user can't be found.

News stories at Wired (John Roberts) and cNet (Joris Evers) have
further information about the service, founder David Ulevitch and the
company.
According to John Roberts, "Ulevitch's seven-person startup is an attempt to revolutionize a layer of the internet's architecture in order to clean its underbelly of scammers and spammers."

Technorati Tags: Startup, web, business models

Advisors and SOHO Grants

Two new online services for small business owners were announced this week: GrantsFlash! and PeerSight.

GrantsFlash! is an email subscription service that provides regular information about grants available to SOHOs (Small home-based businesses with fewer than 10 employees). A free sample is available from grantsflashinfo @ yahoo.com .


PeerSight is an online national CEO membership program. Their Quickstart program is a two month free trial participation.


Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, small business

The Long Tail Continues

Chris Anderson's blog about his recent book, The Long Tail, includes a new piece about the interconnections between blogging and book sales, for him as well as others. The others include Guy Kawasaki and Tom Evslin.



Technorati Tags: books, blogs

Public Speaking online

Looking for some information and guidance online about speaking in public or to the press? The Speaking Channel has short clips of well-known speakers, along with a quick evaluation and assessment of their presentations.
Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for this reference.


Technorati Tags: public speaking

A Good Magazine

The folks behind Good Magazine began blogging in March. Here's their early edition of Good Magazine.

The business model, subscription revenue goes to selected charities, should be of interest to entrepreneurs.

Technorati Tags: business model, social entrepreneurship

New Search Engines

Ebrahim Ezzy has posted a great summary of new search engine technologies: Search 2.0 vs Traditional Search on ReadWriteWeb. The article compares and contrasts leading examples of new search engines (including Swicki and Rollyo) with Traditional Search Engines like Google and Yahoo.

If you have ever found a few million too many results with Google or Yahoo, take a look at this short article for alternative ways to search the web. You can even test drive some of these new search engines on this blog (see sidebar).

The ReadWriteWeb Archives is a good collection of recent articles on Web 2.0.

Technorati Tags: search 2.0

Tech 2006 Seeking Innovations

The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) welcomes applications for participants in Tech 2006, to be held in October. CED is looking for innovations in both traditional and emerging technology areas, including Internet, telecom, medical devices, new materials, robotics and nanotechnology.
The deadline is August 1; the application is available on their site.


Technorati Tags: innovative technologies, entrepreneurs

VC is also Visual Complexity

Maps from Visual Complexity include business networks, such as Tommy McCall's recent New York Times map of executive compensation.

Technorati Tags: visualization

Smart Roads and Financial feeds

Yahoo began distributing free real-time stock quotes and news headlines Monday morning to Web site or blog owners who want the information.
Check this out locally at the Blue Ridge Business Journal

Becky Hepler's article about VA Tech work on Smart Roads is worth a read. Now 200 people strong, "...the Institute began life in 1988 as The Center for Transportation Research, sponsored by the U.S. and Virginia Departments of Transportation and creating a place where civil, mechanical and human factors engineering faculty and students could work together to solve transportation problems."


Technorati Tags: Central Virginia, transportation research

Open Source References

Eric Pugh of OpenSource Connections, points to several useful articles on open source software from different points of view:

Open Source in the Public Interest from the July Computer Business Review.

An Overview of Open Source License by the American Bar Association.

Open source software: A short interpretive history from FirstMonday.

And finally, the classic, The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Steven Raymond.


Technorati Tags: opensource, software

AO100 - Innovative Virginia Companies

Two Virginia companies were among the winners of the Always On 2006 AO 100 honoring the best in innovation.

Mobile365 was recognized for the third year in a row.

Approva was recognized in the Enterprise sector.

Both companies are also finalists for the NVTC Hot Ticket Award for the Hottest Buzz.

UPDATE: The Northern Virginia Tech Council announces the Hot Ticket winners.

Technorati Tags: AO100, NVTC, innovation award

Leading a Virtual Multi-Cultural Company

CVG welcomes Dr. Grant Tate, of Bridgewater Innovations, who will speak on the challenges and opportunities in managing a virtual multi-cultural company on July 18 at the Darden School of Business. The event begins at 7:30 AM.
Register with CVG.



Technorati Tags: CVG, Charlottesville, multi-cultural company, Bridgewater Innovations

The BGN Entrepreneur's Minute July 13, 2006

>(about one minute)

Education for entrepreneurs:

Virtual internships at InternDirect
Music Entrepreneurship at BCOME
The Fasttrac™ entrepreneurship training in Norfolk at Empowerment2010.

Register for Leading a Virtual Multi-Cultural Company with CVG

The BGN Entrepreneur's Minute is made possible by the Robins School of Business.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneurship, Virginia, internships

Presenting a new business

Several pieces about the challenges of presenting a new business idea.

Peter Rip at EarlyStage VC says
"There are usually inescapable clues to suggest your vision, message, or raison d’etre is failing to stick. It is that glassy stare, the lack of questions, or the ever-vapid queries of “so what’s your business model?” and “so what’s your market positioning?” Those questions are really transforms of the why would anybody ever pay for this? question that is going through the other person’s head."

From Guy Kawasaki, "If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don’t have a business."

Fortunately, David Homik has two examples of excellence here.

Technorati Tags: New business, presentations

Alternative Financing for Business Expansion

The Venture Forum luncheon on July 12 will be held at the Virginia Historical Society.
The topic is Alternative Financing for Business Expansion.

The next Venture Out will be held on August 10.


Technorati Tags: Richmond, Venture Forum, business expansion

VA Partnership for Nanotechnology

The Virginia Partnership for Nanotechnology Education and Workforce Development has received a National Science Foundation grant to offer distance-learning graduate degree and certificate programs. The newly formed partnership received a “Partnerships for Innovation” grant from the NSF totaling $600,000.

The engineering institutions from the following schools are collaborating in the Virginia Partnership for Nanotechnology and Workforce Development:
VCU, the College of William and Mary, George Mason University, Old Dominion University, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech.

Graduate-level engineering classes will begin in the spring of 2007. Courses will be organized around five educational tracks: nanomanufacturing; nanomaterials and characterization; nanomodeling and simulation; nanoelectronics; and nanobiotechnology.

Technorati Tags: nanotechnology, NSF, distance education

Virginia's Best Small Businesses

It's time to prepare for the 2006 Virginia Small Business Success Story of the Year!

With an August 31 deadline, collect the application material from Virginia Business.

Technorati Tags: startups, small business, Virginia Business magazine

Virginia's Best CFOs 2006

Virginia Business recently announced the 2006 winners of their annual CFO of the Year awards.

Congratulations to Timothy Lawson, of Comprehensive Computer Solutions, Inc. in Christiansburg, the winner in the Small Private Company category.




Technorati Tags: CFO, Timothy Lawson, Virginia Business

The BGN Entrepreneur's Minute July 7, 2006

(about one minute)

A quick look at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, and their VirginiaScan data resource.

The BGN Entrepreneur's Minute is made possible by the Robins School of Business.

Technorati Tags: VirginiaScan, VEDP, Virginia data

Ernst and Young Entrepreneurs of 2006

Ernst and Young has recently announced the Greater Washington area Entrepreneur of the Year 2006 winners in eleven categories.

Special congratulations to the Central Virginia company, Alpha Natural Resources, among the winners. CEO Michael Quillen was honored in the Energy category.

Greater Washington award winners are now eligible for consideration for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2006 national program. These winners will be announced in California on Nov. 18, 2006. The overall national Entrepreneur Of The Year award recipient will compete at the world event held in Monte Carlo.

Technorati Tags: Ernst and Young, Alpha Natural Resources, Michael Quillen

Central Virginia Business Competition

The Central Virginia Better Business Bureau is preparing for their 2006 Torch Award for marketplace integrity. The winners of this award will be announced at the end of August.

On July 11, they are offering offering a special seminar presented by past winners of this award. See Creative Change Center in Richmond (C3) for more information.
The following day, C3 presents Robert Holland's workshop on Branding on a Shoestring Budget .

Technorati Tags: Torch Award, Richmond, C3,Central Virginia Better Business Bureau,

Entrepreneurial Growth survey

The team of researchers associated with Effectuation.org , who are working on a theory of entrepreneurial expertise, has just posted an online survey for aspiring and active entrepreneurs.

Complete this short survey at Entrepreneurial Growth Survey.
For more information about the field research in this area, see the Batten Institute.

Thank you to Robert Wiltbank from the Atkinson Graduate School of Management of Willamette University for this information


Technorati Tags: Entrepreneurial expertise, effectuation, Batten,Atkinson Graduate School

ICANN Transition

A branch of the U.S. Commerce Department is accepting comments until July 7 on the fate of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that supervises Internet domain names. The public meeting on the ICANN transition is scheduled for July 26. Snippet from Jeremy Kirl's July 3, 2006, article in InfoWorld

Comments can be e-mailed to DNSTransition@ntia.doc.gov. The department is immediately publishing the comments on its Web site at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

For more information and background, see ICANN Watch and ICANN Blog.

Technorati Tags: ICANN, NTIA, ICANN Transition