Jen Consalvo » tech

2010 ces wrap-up

Jen Consalvo — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:24:17 +0000

this year i’ve broadened my blogging horizons and am writing for a few publications (my own and others!), so my ces coverage is a bit scattered. but tonight i went to a social media club, post-ces overview at the cea (consumer electronics association) headquarters in arlington, va to hear a few people give their own “best of”s” and overviews, which inspired me to gather together my various posts and some additional photos from the week. overall, i would say that ces had a renewed energy this year and if anything, it represented a huge range of great things to come, particularly in the second half of 2010. the folks at tonight’s cea event verified that, saying they’ve already garnered huge sales for the 2011 ces show next january. can’t wait!

posts:

CES Coolness: Observations from the Floor – huffingtonpost.com
Caught in the Flow at CES – techcocktail.com
Social CES – jenconsalvo.com
CES 2010: It’s All About Comfy Footwear – huffingtonpost.com
Dazed, Confused, Focused: 5 Tips From the CES Floor – womengrowbiz.com

tumbles:

all photos:

jen’s ces group on flickr

paying respect to 2009

Jen Consalvo — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:49:59 +0000

i’ve seen a lot of people hating on 2009. i just can’t do that. no matter what happens in a year, i can’t look back and think of it as a time to forget – there’s always something to learn from, deepen, grow and enjoy. i’m also an optimist.. can you tell? maybe it’s all the deepak chopra, but i believe in being friends with time, making peace with the ticking clocks and changing calendars and embracing every moment. so, inspired by gwen bell’s best of 2009 challenge and david lifson’s personal year in review, i’m finally getting my fingers in gear and doing my own ‘09 retrospective piece. being, well, me, i’ve infused it with visuals (which is why it took me 2 days). have you done your own 2009 personal review? if so, post it in the comments below! i love reading what other people have been up to.

note on links… the link for each month points to that month of photos on flickr. the other links are to photos, blogposts, etc.

january – i was feeling pretty good about myself at the start of this year – even on my birthday! spent a few days freezing on the mall for all of the inaugural festivities, defrosted for some dressy balls, then off to nyc for the jazz foundation of america event where we met eric lewis, an amazing jazz pianist. we also went to an amazing killers concert (awesome birthday gift!).

february - i bought my pride and joy – the canon 5dmII and promptly photographed 2 tech cocktails (dc & chicago). i spent a lot of time working on my holistic health site, making healthy food and trying to get myself into new habits. it was also a highly creative month for me – reading “the artists way” and working on my photography, writing and coding (well, tinkering) skills. by this time, we (frank and i) were working in earnest with a team in india on a project we like to call “the willow road project”.

march – i pretty much give this entire month over to sxsw, even though it was only one week. it was amazing. i took tons of pictures, made lots of new friends, blogged a lot … the rest of the month was probably spent in decompression. it was also a busy time with the willow road project – just trying to get the requirements complete, the designs done and the dev team moving. oh, i also upgraded my blog… goodbye calmwater.

april - totally focused on health (still recovering from sxsw) and enjoying the little things, like baseball at camden yards, a sater at my girlfriends house, coloring easter eggs, and spending time around dc. the cherry blossoms were just stunning and i love that we had some quality time meandering around them and showing them off to visiting family members. oh – and i won a yelp photo contest with this photo. it’s still for sale if someone wants to purchase it! (just email me) the willow road project continues on.. at this point, i’m frustrated it’s taking so long and dream up thankfulfor. i spec it out in one night because i know it’s a project we have to do.

may - what a ridiculously busy month. i did my annual spring return to maine to see my family (i usually avoid it from jan to apr – brrr) and my girlfriend’s bridal shower. decided to start writing a book and announced it on my blog. found a designer to help me finish up thankfulfor’s design. then a marathon of events: washingtonian tech titans, techcocktail dc 5, 2 events photographing eric lewis, other photography jobs, spoke on a panel or two, a wedding in milwaukee, get home, repack and head to…

june – taipei! yes, that’s in taiwan. what an awesome trip for computech. great tech, food, views, people and adventures. upon our return stateside i was back on the boltbus to nyc for the #140conf, speaking locally at creatives dc, then to chicago for a wedding and other festivities. trying to get thankfulfor built but having problems locking down developers. the willow road project has now turned into a long, winding, bumpy road. trying to stay optimistic about it and motivate the team while also making headway on my book.

july – i was lucky enough to attend a nasa tweetup, which was pretty cool. also spent more time in maine with my family, writing, talking on skype with developers and designers and then in san diego for another wedding with some of my best friends from growing up – pure joy. hanging in encinitas was definitely a highlight as was meeting deepak chopra while there. our first taste of press for shiny heart ventures came with an article in the washington post about us as digital nomads. exciting!

august – was just a lovely month. i made a lot of progress on my book, began writing a monthly post for womengrowbusiness.com, tried hot yoga for the first time, saw some amazing startups at launchbox digital’s demo day, went to see dave matthews band, enjoyed farmers markets, made major progress with thankfulfor and even demo’d it at techcocktail 6 (with a giant launch cake) where we got great feedback to incorporate before official launch. hired a new developer (from iowa!) for willow road project help. also had another very relaxing trip to maine (my sis and i went blueberry picking!).. best time of year there!

september – every fall is such an exciting yet anxious time for me, as if i’m still at my first day of school. the onset of tech events might be part of it. it started early with techcocktail boston (and a brief end-of-summer maine visit), then the network solutions conference (grow smart biz), a girl geek dinner & talk, and a panel at the american independent writers conference. of course the biggest event of the month was techcrunch50 – i love going to san francisco each year for this glimpse into startup trends. another highlight was being part of a review panel at the national science foundation for small business technology grants. what makes this the best month of the year though?? we officially launched thankfulfor and got great international press coverage and started a wonderful community. at this point, we realize the willow road project has major flaws, is in jeopardy and it’s time to re-strategize.

october – even though the hectic pace continued, i LOVE october. kicked it off with the creativity in business conference in gtown, del ray’s art on the avenue, ignite dc, social ad summit in nyc (where i won a wii!!), twtrcon and blog potomac. sat front row at gw watching deepak chopra talk about his new book. also got to see bill and melinda gates talk about global health progress and needs. it was an inspiring month, busy with updates to thankfulfor and trying to finish up my book, which i had really wanted to complete by fall. some things just don’t happen the way we plan!

november – visiting savannah to speak at geekend savannah was well worth the unfortunate cold i returned home with. but it was my first real down time (really.. down for the count) in a year so i can’t complain. it was kind of nice to surrender to hot teas and my couch. i did get to enjoy a last leaf-peeping hurrah and work on a holiday promotion for thankfulfor – a gratitude tips page and challenge. i also worked with the epic change organization to help with tweetsgiving’s epic gratitude fundraising effort. and while we worked the entire time, it was nice to escape to florida for thanksgiving (we did interviews with cnn and cbs.com while there!). our thankfulfor traffic doubled thanks to the gratitude season. it was also a reminder that the business we chose will always keep us busy during the holiday season.

december – as i write this, it’s january 1st, but i feel like it’s still december. can it be over already? what a flurry. we held techcocktail dc 7 and techcocktail chicago 12, went to a formal ball in chicago (fun!), watched the snow fall for days, went to some amazing holiday parties & dinners around dc, went to maine for a week and spent quality time with friends and family at christmas. at this point, i think we have a new strategy for the willow road project, so look for that coming in 2010. we have lots of learnings and plans for thankfulfor and we just announced the launch of another project: shiny maine lobster! yes, we’ve brought my sea-faring family online. my book is written and in design! so look for that coming soon too. while there were many challenges this year (both public and private ones), i can’t help but be proud of living life to my fullest this year, my first post-aol year, living life outside corporate walls. and doing this review helps me crystalize what i want 2010 to be like – what i need to work on and make happen – but that’s for another post.

thank you 2009 for all the beautiful moments, laughter, challenges and learnings.

tech cocktail chicago 12 – wow

Jen Consalvo — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:35:28 +0000

12 events into it and tech cocktail chicago at john barleycorn in wrigleyville was a full house with more startups than ever, live music, a guy on stilts, performance artists and lots of costumes, demos, smiles and chatter. it was a good night. i’m always amazed at how prepared the chi-town startup teams are for these events – branded in tshirts, signs in place, give-a-ways and more. it’s an impressive tech-city.

The event was sponsored by microsoft, chicago micro, saper law, blue sky factory, clearwire, fr&r, spoutbox & shiny heart ventures.

14 startups demo which included: peoplestox, merge.fm, myservicevine, rubity, general system dynamics (gsd), special agent, omar 9000, send eazy, simpletel, great america networks conferencing, cheddargetter, squad, schedulething, jumpforward. for more details, check out the recap by jimmy gardner on techcocktail.

october’s local tech events

Jen Consalvo — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:21:32 +0000

fall is my favorite season.. but it seems to fly by the fastest. probably because it’s so jam packed with events. there were many others but here are just a few photos from some recent local tech events in the dc-area: blog potomac, twtrcon and a couple from last night’s “living proof” event put on by the gates foundation. note the tears of sadness and funeral garb for blog potomac’s last event. and of course, we collected a few thankfulfor statements along the way…

npr’s andy carvin speaking at blog potomac

shel israel was a morning highlight at blog potomac

sean gorman from fortiusone spoke at blog potomac later in the day

natalia luckyanova from imangi studios spoke about game development

a teary-eyed adam zand and shireen mitchell announce the “wake” for blog potomac (post-event happy/sad hour)

geoff livingston, the event founder, gives some final remarks at the end of blog potomac

shireen mitchell steals some quiet time in the theater’s balcony

scott harrison talks about charity:water at twtrcon dc

power users unite at table 3

the excitable social media panel at twtrcon dc

a group picture before leaving twtrcon for another local meetup

laura fitton (aka @pistachio) tells us what she is thankful for (awwww…)

scott harrison of charity:water tells us what he is thankful for

brian dresher from usa today tells us what he is thankful for

we couldn’t get close enough to bill gates to ask what he is thankful for, but let’s just guess (pardon the bad pic – taken with iphone!)

another pic of the stage at the gates foundation living proof project at the sidney harmon hall in dc

eye candy from TechCrunch50

Jen Consalvo — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:46:41 +0000

of course you didn’t think i was going to end with just one post on techcrunch50, right? sheesh. i was just reserving the fun stuff for today. my favorite part of techcrunch50 is wandering around the crowd, especially the demo pit, and catching whatever interesting things i can. see all my pics from the event.

TechCrunch50: Year 3

Jen Consalvo — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:33:35 +0000

How time flies. I remember when Mike first told us he was going to host a tech conference and after that first event, we were all exhausted and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of entrepreneurship and creativity under one roof, not to mention the nonstop after-events. By now, I’ve learned how to better pace myself, I know lots of the other attendees and feel like the event has become a bit of a fall tradition. That said, it was still a whirlwind event with a surprise ending.

Here are links to the posts I did each day and some of the images I captured. Of course, for more complete coverage, the TechCrunch staff did an amazing job posting about all of the companies and most of the panels of experts. But while we’re here, let’s enjoy my take on things, shall we?

140 conference

Jen Consalvo — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:32:43 +0000

it’s been a while between postings because, well, i’ve been busy. maine, milwaukee, taiwan, new york, chicago – all since the middle of may. that’s a lot even for me.

if you follow my flickr photo stream then you’ve seen some of the pics, but i’m still getting caught up – almost done! and with those pics, come blog posts. many are in draft form right now, but this first one is about jeff pulver’s #140conf that took place in new york city early last week. i think the best description of the event is jeff’s, from his post-event email:

One of my goals of creating and producing #140conf was to in effect enable what could be best described as: “Social Media Heterosis” (hybrid vigor in the social media space) and cross connect communities which are all using twitter as a platform in their business but would have otherwise have never had any reason to meet each or connect with each other.

heterosis aside – clearly it was the sheer variety of people who showed up and participated that made #140conf worthwhile. put even more simply.. there were lots more artsy people there than at your typical tech conference.

many other people wrote recaps far better than my notes would allow, so i’ll post some of my favorite images here and include links to some posts i found interesting or informative, below. the picture above is from a fun session where a group of us taught supermodel melissa haro (@melissaharo) about twitter. big thanks to jeff pulver for producing the event and getting us all involved.

and just a few pics that reveal my obsession with footware…

more images here.

recaps, opinions and such:

and of course, to be balanced, here are some strong thoughts on the weaknesses of the event by paul carr.
guardian.co.uk – series: not safe for work -and we’ll tweet at the end of the tour

TC50 personal favs

Jen Consalvo — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:42:24 +0000

i knew coming into this week that it would be intense and overwhelming, but also inspiring, which is what i was looking for. it gave me an electric feeling to be surrounded by so many smart, energetic and driven people – and their enthusiasm is completely contagious! but realistically, only a fraction of the startups here will really make it so i want to share my top 10 13 so everyone can check them out. admittedly, these may not be the best businesses, but they’re the ones i would sign up for and want to test out.

techcrunch50 conference

opentrace – traces product materials and related information and calculates their environmental load
other inbox -helps manage email overload by creating filters for every site that sends you email
adgregate markets – transforms online display ads into fully transactional micro-stores
popego – social lifestream aggregator taking it to the next level by filtering interests
tonchidot (once i have an iphone!)- “world camera” is a real world interface that connects the iphone to a virtual world allowing you to create and participate in both
fitbit -ultra-compaq wireless sensor tracks your personal activities and works with your personalized webpage to view and track progress on personal health goals
postbox – automaticaly detects, analyszes and catalogs all types of content from your email inbox, making it easier to find and use all your stuff
fotonauts – takes photo sharing to a new level, encouraging collaboration
birdpost – searchable, visual database and social network for birdwatchers (or for plants, fish – whatever)
causecast – helps make it easier to give back based on the causes you believe in
goodguide - the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products you use
goplanit – travel recommendations and planning on the go
iamnews – a global open newsroom powered by you

congrats again to Nir whose product, iamnews.com was the demo pit winner which earned him an unexpected spot on stage. very cool product.

TC50 Day 3…oy

Jen Consalvo — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:15:38 +0000

ok, so we were a little delayed this morning because it was a late night, but we’re here now and didn’t get the worst seats in the world. and we were still in time for the first presentations of the day which include videosurf, gazopa (presenting as i type), fotonauts and bojam. this mornings judges include robert scoble, sheryl sandberg, joi ito and bradley horowitz – not sure if they’ll be as feisty and fun as some of our previous judges but so far they’re giving the startups some great advice. for more pics and comments throughout the day check out my tumblr page.

for now, enjoy this pic i took of jason calacanis interviewing mark cuban. excellent interview – read the entire transcript on TechCrunch.

top 10 TC50 products i want to try as of day 2…

Jen Consalvo — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:17:37 +0000

i’ll update this after tomorrow’s presos, but here are the top 10 new products i personally would like to try.

angstro – day 1, memes & news
opentrace – day 1, enterprise
other inbox – day 1, advertising & commerce
adgregate markets – day 1, advertising & commerce
popego – day 2, collaboration
me-trics – day 2, finance & statistics
tonchidot (once i have an iphone!) – day 2, mobile
fitbit - day 2, mobile
postbox – day 2, language & platform tools
swype – day 2, language & platform tools