Ted Leonsis talks Web 2.0

Ted Leonsis

AOL is in the news and so is Ted Leonsis. Known for his love of technology and connecting to people, Ted Leonsis has embraced Facebook and other social media that represent the democratization of the internet. Be sure to read our interview with Ted Leonsis and see why Web 2.0 will change your business. Leonsis is scheduled to be the opening keynote for this year’s east coast Web 2.0 for Business event on November 1st. The conference features a special Government track. Click here to register.

A report from Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young found that Web 2.0 companies got a record $464.2 million in the first half of this year, a 7 percent increase over the 2006 period.

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox - October 11th

Vicente Fox

The former Mexican President Vicente Fox has been making headlines with the release of his new book “Revolution of Hope”. Fox is the grandson of United States emigrants to Mexico and helped release the stranglehold of Mexico’s one party system. He was an enormous force on world politics and placed a new global light on Mexico.

President Vicente Fox will be speaking at the Potomac Officers Club on October 11th and attendees can expect a forceful presentation on world politics and a sense of reality about the view of America that is seen by a former head of state. This is a rare opportunity. Register here. ExecutiveBiz members are also invited to attend! This event is made possible by Ernst & Young and Hogan & Hartson.

Register for Web 2.0 for Business - November 1st

Don't miss the top annual web conference on the east coast. Speakers will include:

Om Malik - GigaOM Rohit Bhargava - Ogilvy PR Jeff Barr - Amazon Web Services John Della Volpe - Harvard Matthew Glotzbach - Google Enterprise

Dion Hinchcliffe Frank Gruber John M. Kamensky - IBM Chris Rasmussen Hart Rossman - SAIC

Register for Web 2.0 for Business today to reserve your seat.

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

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Best of the ExecutiveBiz Blog

• Web 2.0 Roundtable
  September 14, 2007 by JD Kathuria
  Many of the fastest growing private companies in the Discrict of Columbia provide online advertising, marketing and IT support according to the recently published INC 5000 List.
• Hughes Communications Brings Satellite Internet to Rural Areas
  September 14, 2007 by Karen Mortensen
  Hughes Communications is about to make my life so much easier. Let me explain. My mom lives in rural Northwest Washington state, where the biggest development each time I visit is the location of the newest clear-cut. It’s rural. Very, very rural. My normally timid retired mother has learned to drive like a bat out of heck on roads that curve violently around the hills and mountains. When I’m with her in the car, I clutch the door frame and pray.
• Inc. 5000 List
  September 11, 2007 by John Stauffer
  Many of the fastest growing private companies in the Discrict of Columbia provide online advertising, marketing and IT support according to the recently published INC 5000 List.

Read and comment these posts and more at blog.executivebiz.com

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A Whole New Web Site
by Ken Yarmosh, Internet Strategy Specialist at Viget Labs
[Republished from from Viget's Four Labs blog]

Read this sentence. You just used the left hemisphere of your brain. That’s because our brains are contralateral, which means the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice-versa. In case you are still trying to figure that out, in the West, we read left to right.

Left-brain thinking has traditionally been associated with traits like order, analysis, and logic and jobs in accounting, engineering, and the medical field. But the future, according to Daniel Pink, is in right-brain thinking or at least in it playing a much more significant role.

Pink’s A Whole New Mind provides a compelling argument for the impending transition of society’s influencers to be right-brain thinkers. These thinkers are aesthetic, contextual, and metaphorical and typically have been artists, inventors, or storytellers. In Pink’s future, many left-brain jobs, products, and activities will be outsourced, automated, or less valued due to globalization and incredible efficiencies created by none other than left-brain thinkers (in particular Pink’s three agents of change are Abundance, Asia, and Automation).

The conclusion is simple: whip your right-brain into shape. Start exercising those right-brain muscles. Pink outlines the “whole new mind” he believes is critical in this coming era, indicating the need to complement function with design, argument with story, focus with symphony, logic with empathy, seriousness with play, and accumulation with meaning. The whole new mind is not the absence of the first; it is the inclusion of the second.

Should Pink truly be prophetic, his conclusions would have significant implications on how businesses and organizations interact and communicate with clients, customers, and constituents on the web (you saw this coming, didn’t you?). Perhaps elements of his whole new mind are already here.

Blogs have created a more conversational (”play”) tone than the traditional corporate web site. Simply having a web site (”function”) is no longer a competitive advantage; successful sites have great design. Good sites don’t just have copy that sells people (”argument”); they tell a story.

Pink’s vision of the future, while still untested, doesn’t seem unrealistic. We definitely see the need for a “whole new web site” with many of our clients and more generally, in our industry. Web agencies or web groups within organizations won’t succeed with left-brainers alone. They’ll need right-brain thinkers to help integrate and synthesize web presence (”symphony”) , to craft narrative content (”story”), and create meaningful web experiences (”empathy,” “design,” and “meaning”).

Get ready for a whole new web site.

p.s. - We’re actually already pretty good at those.

Ken Yarmosh is an Internet Strategist at Viget Labs, a DC-area web consulting and development firm that plans, designs, builds, markets, and supports leading web solutions.

NEXT TOPIC: Effective Sales and Marketing Strategies featuring Jim Garrettson of ExecutiveBiz!

Is your firm ready to achieve new growth levels in 2008? Start setting the stage now for bigger and better sales, and growth opportunities by tuning into our September 25 Growth Without Barriers webcast. The topic: Effective Sales and Marketing Strategies that Work. The webcast begins at 1:00 p.m. EST and lasts one hour.

Following up on our July webcast "Building Your Brand and Best Practices for Small and Growing Companies," the September 25th webcast will focus on specific sales and marketing strategies to help you drive top-line growth. Topics will include: building and motivating an effective sales force, understanding the basics of building a marketing plan, building an effective public relations and promotional campaign, best practices in developing and implementing marketing strategies and a special segment on web-based marketing. Guest panelist is Jim Garrettson, President of Potomac Officers Club and ExecutiveBiz will join your Growth Without Barriers hosts -- Grow Fast Grow Right founder Andrew Sherman, and SBE Council President & CEO Karen Kerrigan.

You can register for this webcast now by sending your name, email address and business/organization name to: info@sbecouncil.org. Please put “Webcast RSVP" in the subject line. On September 24, the SBE Council team will send you a link to access the broadcast.

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.

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J.D. Kathuria
ExecutiveBiz Editor
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