Microsoft COO Kevin Turner to Speak

Kevin Turner

Continuing a long string of appearances from top leaders, ExecutiveBiz and the Potomac Officers Club announced today that Kevin Turner, Microsoft COO, agreed to speak at a rare East Coast appearance on September 21st at 9 am. Kevin will speak about delivering innovation to the market and strategically leveraging IT investments among his topics. The event is made possible by Microsoft and Unisys and should sell out quickly. POC members click here to register, ExecutiveBiz members may also register here. register here.

This addition of Kevin Turner completes a knock out line up to begin the fall schedule. Other speakers include Blackboard CEO Michael Chasen on September 12th and former Mexican President Vicente Fox on October 11th.

I Want My Web 2.0

Get your web 2.0 fix at The New New Internet (TNNI): Web 2.0 for Business Conference. New speakers from Amazon, Google and SAIC have been added and new panelists and technology exhibitors are being added almost daily. This is the largest annual Web 2.0 for business event on the East Coast. Don’t miss Web 2.0 for Business on November 1st in Reston, VA.

Josh Kopelman

Executive Spotlight on Josh Kopelman

This week’s Executive Spotlight is with Josh Kopelman, founder of Half.com. Kopelman has had an outstanding career. He sold Half.com to eBay in 2000 for $350 million and then went on to work for eBay for three years. Symantec acquired the next company he founded—TurnTide—just six months after he created it.

Kopelman is now Managing Director of a seed-stage venture fund called First Round Capital. He also serves as an investor, advisor, and director to many businesses in the Internet and software industries. We talked with him about his business and Web 2.0 expertise. Click here to read his interview in ExecutiveBiz.

New to ExecutiveBiz

We want to continue connecting on a personal level with our readers. Thus, we have launched the ExecutiveBiz blog. We will include daily posts of content including pictures of our past events that won’t always appear in our e-magazine. We encourage our readers to use FeedBurner and subscribe to our blog here. Join other readers in commenting on the area's most relevant business news, events, and executives.

Bob Corlett

Breakfast Series featuring Bob Corlett

Bob Corlett an executive staffing expert and accomplished speaker on Results Based-Hiring is speaking an ExecutiveBiz roundtable on September 25th. He will discuss dramatically improving business results by aligning staffing strategy with business objectives, productive interviews, gaining and retaining achievement-oriented candidates, creating effective recruitment advertising and more! The room is limited to 20 executives, register early to ensure a spot. Click here to register for the event.

Best place to post a job and reach the executive crowd. executivebizjobs.jobexchangenetwork.com

Advertising here is smarter. Find out why & reach nearly 50,000 execs each week.

Special Column by Aneesh Chopra, Sec of Technology of Virginia

Aneesh Chopra

Last month, Governor Kaine took the cabinet to the Eastern Shore where we met local shopkeepers selling their wares to a growing number of tourists. During our welcome reception, a local merchant shared with me the story of his t-shirt company, the Purple Pony, and its mascot, Walter. You see, Walter has a MySpace page and is attracting fans all across the country. It is a story of Virginians from all corners embracing Web 2.0 applications to drive economic growth.

As Virginia's Secretary of Technology, I take great pride in Virginia's ranking as home to the nation's highest concentration of technology workers, our second annual ranking by Forbes.com as the best state for business, and EducationWeek's study that a child born in Virginia has the highest likelihood of lifetime success. In 2006, we learned that one out of three new jobs created in the entire Commonwealth were in the technology industry and a growing number are in the Web 2.0 space.

While I'm encouraged by the economic development potential in Web 2.0, I'm passionate about its value in driving innovation in the public sector. Last week, we announced a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership with Microsoft that leverages the Virtual Earth platform to strengthen college campus safety. For its part, Microsoft is offering free training and developer toolkits to encourage as many college campuses as possible to overlay evacuation routes, historical incidents color-coded by severity, and where possible, real-time GPS information on campus shuttles or other strategic assets needed in times of emergency. These applications are already popping up all over the country by individuals empowered to make a difference. To formalize this creativity, we are pleased Microsoft is willing to train and support faculty, students, and safety officials on the promise and power of Virtual Earth - all at no charge to anyone. Imagine the possibilities when creative minds take advantage of robust tochnology. Click here to read rest of the article.

We are also increasingly reliant on Web 2.0 tools to facilitate government collaboration on key policy and operational matters. In partnership with UVa, my office has unveiled nearly a half-dozen collaboration sites to encourage leaders in Health IT, technology-related economic development, the state's "paperless government" initiative and others to share resources, support a wiki, blog, or other tools to encourage the rapid diffusion of knowledge so we can make better decisions for Virginia's taxpayers.

As we celebrate Virginia's 400th anniversary at Jamestown, we are reminded of her myriad untold stories. As we think about the potential of Web 2.0 and our collective desire to celebrate our nation's history, we see emerging possibilities to marry our strong tradition of excellence with innovative tools to empower Virginians. You may have read recently about the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities' ambitious goal to catalog our complete history through the "Encyclopedia Virginia" initiative. While the Foundation is currently focused on recruiting high-quality, peer-reviewed submissions organized in a coherent frame for all to access through the web, it is also pondering the proper role for Virginia's broader community. What might the power of Web 2.0 do for our work in building that collection?

I believe our future as a community is tied to our ability to leverage the empowering tools of Web 2.0 to our notion of what it means to support one another through public service. Let's work together to unleash both the economic development and public sector potential of this exciting new set of platforms.

Best of the ExecutiveBiz Blog

• August 16 - DC-area Venture Capital Flowing North
• August 16 - Alion Acquires Assets of Logistics Firm LogConGroup
• August 17 - Corporate Executive Board Aquires IT Toolbox
• August 21 - DC Small Businesses Find (Wind) Power in Numbers

Perspective: Web 2.0 and the CEO

In a “Perspective” piece published this week on CNET (“Web 2.0 and the CEO), Forrester Chairman said “There is only one path: marketing and technology must work together to design and implement your Web 2.0 strategy. Click here to read the entire article.

Advertising here is smarter. Find out why & reach nearly 50,000 execs each week.

Comment on this at blog.executivebiz.com

Bob London is president of London, Ink LLC, a full-service marketing and communications firm and serves as a Virtual VP of Marketing for growth-stage companies that need hands-on project-based leadership in marketing strategy and planning. More information is available at www.londonink.com.

SneakerBall

September 18, 2007
National Building Museum
401 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

www.gwsportsalliance.com

ExecutiveBiz works in partnership with The Potomac Officers Club. The Potomac Officers Club is a non-profit board of trade dedicated to improving business conditions in the Greater Washington area. For more infomation, please visit www.potomacofficersclub.com.

Thanks, Potomac Officers Club Sponsors

J.D. Kathuria

Message from the Editor

This digital magazine is designed to serve the needs of the local business community. Please contact us with your content ideas or advertising requests. We currently reach nearly 50,000 area executives.

I would also welcome the opportunity to speak with you about our membership organization. We're growing fast and already have over 700 members, with more joining every day.

J.D. Kathuria
ExecutiveBiz Editor
jd@executivebiz.com
703-226-7010