Grasshopper is taking over the United States! With our trip to LessConf this week and BarCamp Tour right around the corner, we have some exciting events coming up across the country.

In the next two weeks you can find us in San Jose for SMX West and Austin for SXSW. Check it out:

SMX West

Next Wednesday, Casie Gillette, our Online Marketing Manager will be one of four panelists at the Differentiate or Die session at SMX West. Learn the different things outside of traditional SEO your company can do to stand out.

Details:

When: Wednesday February 29, 2012

Where: San Jose Marriott, San Jose, CA

Website: SMX West

Connect with Casie: @casieg

SXSW

We’ll also be headed to Texas in a few weeks for SXSW.  Our Ambassador of Buzz, Stephanie Bullis, will be speaking on a panel about the BarCamp Tour alongside the rest of the BarCamp Tour brands.  The session titled, 5 Brands Travel the US Inspiring Entrepreneurship will cover everything from how the BarCamp Tour came about to what we learned and why it was so successful. Don’t miss this panel!

Details:

When: Sunday, March 11, 3:30 – 4:30 PM

Where: Omni Downtown

Website: SXSW

Connect with Stephanie: @srbullis

Will you be attending any of these events? Let us know!

We’ve ignored the warnings about the insanity that may ensue and are packing our bags and heading south for the most epic startup event ever – LessConf.

What attracts us to LessConf you ask? Tweets like this. “You should attend if you like pudding, karate chops and lasers (in that order)”and this, “you may not bring fireworks to LessConf this year.“

As you can see, LessConf isn’t your average event.  It’s recommended that you only attend if you “want to learn, grow, and challenge conventional thinking.” This is definitely our kind of event and something that we not only love to attend but we also love to support.So, what can you expect from us at LessConf?

We’ll be co-hosting the pre-party with our friends Dynamic Wear on Wednesday night.  To go along with the ridiculousness that is LessConf, this won’t be your average pre-party.  There will be:

• Food – delicious appetizers like pub wings and sliders
• Drinks – pick your poison. We’ll provide drink tickets for your first couple drinks.
• Networking – an opportunity to meet the folks you’ll be spending the next 2 days with. Make new friends and catch up with old.
• Photo Booth – What happens at LessConf stays at LessConf – unless it happens in our photo booth.

Basically, everything you could ever want in a pre-party and the chance to take awkward photos with people you just met! What’s not to love?

Pre-party details:

• Date: Wednesday, February 22nd
• Time: Party starts promptly at 8:00 PM
• Where: Ri Ra Irish Pub

Come for a drink or five and kick LessConf off the right way. Sessions don’t start on Thursday until 10 AM, so you’ve got no excuses!

Will you be there too? Be sure to find Stephanie, our Ambassador of Buzz! If you’re lucky, she’ll hook you up with a $50 gift card to give Grasshopper a try!

This post was written by our Online Marketing Manager, Casie Gillette.

I attended The Successful You: Women’s Leadership Forum yesterday in Cambridge and sat in on the session “Boston. The Destination for Female Entrepreneurs”.

The panel featured four Boston-area women involved in the entrepreneurial community – Stephanie Kaplan, CEO of Her Campus Media, Jennifer Lum, Partner in Apricot Capital, Katie Rae, Managing Director of TechStars and Pam Reeve, Chair, The Commonwealth Institute. The session was excellent and each panelist really brought a unique perspective to the topic.

Here are a few key takeaways:

Boston is Great

According to the panelists, there is a true advantage to being a woman in Boston! Not only does the city have a history of women growing businesses here, but there are support systems (groups of women CEOs, CTOs, etc), competitions like MassChallenge and a community of people willing to mentor and help.

You MUST Speak Up

A common theme throughout the session was that women don’t tend to speak up when they want something. There is an innate belief that just by doing good work and doing good things, you’ll be recognized. The problem is, that’s not true, whether you’re a man or woman.

Want funding? Ask for it. According to panel moderator Pam Reeve, only 5% of venture funding in the technology sector goes to women. That’s not because women are less qualified, it’s because they just don’t ask.

Network Network Network

In order to be successful, you have to network and you have to build relationships. While this goes for everyone, Katie Rae pointed out this is especially true for women as they don’t typically run in the same social circles as venture capitalists, “We aren’t in frats or out golfing”. So, it’s important to be out there, networking and getting to know board members and the people who are actually giving the money.

What to Look For

Each panelist was asked what they look for in others, whether that person is a co-founder or an employee coming on board.

• Give them the trash test during the interview. Leave a piece of trash on the table and see what they do. People who are proactive and solve a problem tend to do well since most startups don’t have systems in place to train you. – Katie Rae
• People in your startup need to have energy and passion for what you want to get done. They don’t see it just as a job, they see it as mission. – Pam Reeves
• Being adaptive and flexible is key to working in a startup. The ability to deal with chaos in an unstructured environment. Also be persistant. You will go to war with your team members – Jennifer Lum
• You have to be the kind of person who can play multiple roles – Stephanie Kaplan

Great Advice

Each panelist was asked for their best advice, here were the answers:

• Lower your voice and make statements vs asking questions as we are taught to do. – Katie Rae
• Don’t get caught up in emotional stuff. Focus on what is best for your business and your business goals – Stephanie Kaplan
• Be more vocal or push for things to happen – Jennifer Lum

The panel offered a ton of great advice. To learn more from each of these women, check out their Twitter feeds:

• @ktrae
• @stephaniekaplan
• @jenniferlum

Also be sure to check out women’s events all over the country including SheEO, Girls in Tech and Women 2.0.

This week we have two really great events lined up.  On Wednesday, we’ll be sponsoring and attending Drinks vs. Zombies, an event that we’re beyond excited about, especially because it’s all for a good cause. What does the Drinks vs. Zombies event entail you ask?  Check out our post, Zombies? Entrepreneurs? Drinks? BREW?…What?, for all the gory details.  Let’s just say this; we wouldn’t be sponsoring it if we didn’t love everything about it!

On Thursday, we’ll be down in New Orleans at TribeCon.  According to their site, TribeCon is, “a conference in NOLA about building strong communities and leveraging online tools to create powerful movements,” awesome, right? This will be a first for us on a few levels, not only is it our first trip to TribeCon, it’s also our first outdoor conference. Will you be there too? Be on the lookout for Jonathan, our Ambassador of Buzz. He’ll be there as a speaker.

Details:

Drinks vs. Zombies

• Date: Wednesday, October, 26th
• Time: Fun will begin at 7pm sharp
• Where: Ned Devine’s (Faneuil Hall area)
• Attire: Costumes are highly encouraged. The more creative the better!
• Cost: $5 (100% of which is donated to the non-profit Interise)
• Tickets: https://www.fundraise.com/drinksvszombies
• Tweet Tweet: #ZombieBREW

TribeCon

• Date: Thursday, October, 27th
• Time: 9 AM – 5 PM CT
• Where: One Collins C. Diboll Circle, City Park, New Orleans, 70124
• Tickets: http://tribecon2011.eventbrite.com/

Will you be attending any of these events? Let us know, we’d love to say hello!

This post is written by our Ambassador of Buzz, Jonathan Kay.

The Grasshopper team decided to get involved with another cool event happening in Boston.  We tend to focus all our efforts on doing events during the summer (when there is seemingly a shortage), but this event we just absolutely could not resist.  Trust me, if this was just “your typical networking event” we wouldn’t be involved.

So, what makes this event so awesome?

• Your ticket costs $5 and every single penny of that five dollars goes toward supporting a really awesome non-profit organization – Interise.  They help local and minority owned small businesses succeed. They help them stay current and continue to grow their business.  Most of these business owners could never afford an MBA. Interise helps them get the “Street Smarts MBA”.
• You get to attend a well decorated and uncommon event, at a great location (Ned Devines).  The room will be filled with entrepreneurs, VC’s, Angels and other entertaining Halloween themes surprises.
• There will be 2 ice louges with (FREE) Halloween themed Kettle-One vodka drinks.  (mmm)
• There will be at least one, real-life zombie.

The less awesome, but necessary details:

• Date: October 26th, 2011
• Time: Fun will begin at 7pm sharp
• Where: Ned Devine’s (Faneuil Hall area)
• Attire: COSTUME!  I was not told why, but I was told there will be consequences!  Dress as something scary, funny, or as an “entrepreneur of the past”!
• Cost: $5 (100% of which is donated to the non-profit Interise)
• Tickets: https://www.fundraise.com/drinksvszombies
• Tweet Tweet: #ZombieBREW

I challenge you to think of a reason you can’t dress silly, hang out with cool entrepreneurs, and give $5 to a great cause!

We thought this chat would be a good way for our fans, who don’t always get a chance to attend our events, to learn about generating buzz for your brand and ask any questions you have about generating buzz for your company. Jonathan will be speaking at the “Building an Army of Brand Loyalists” event the night before, so this chat is a great alternative for those that can’t make the event and a place for those who do attend it, to bring any follow up questions!

On another note, we’re taking a bit of a different approach with this event; we’re letting YOU decide what time we hold our chat. Head over to our Facebook page and cast your vote (or else we’ll pick )! We’ll announce the time on Wednesday morning.

How Does this Work?

Visit our Facebook page on Thursday at 5 PM EST when Jonathan is live, and post your buzz related questions for him to answer.  Jonathan will reply to as many questions as he can get to within the hour. You can stay for the whole hour or you can just stick around for your answer, it’s up to you!

Details

• Host: Jonathan Kay, Ambassador of Buzz at Grasshopper
• When: Thursday, July 28th at 5 PM EST! (Thanks to all those who voted!)
• Where: Our Facebook wall – www.facebook.com/grasshopper

Have a topic suggestion for our next Facebook chat? Tell us in the comments below!

It’s been a while since we’ve done an event post, and that’s because during the summer, events tend to be few and far between.  Not next week!

We have a great week lined up from the What no to Web Remix on Tuesday, to Building an Army of Brand Loyalists with MassChallenge on Wednesday, and our Facebook chat with Jonathan Kay on Thursday – we’ll be pretty busy!

What not to Web Remix

Next Tuesday, Jonathan Kay, our Ambassador of Buzz will be one of four panelists at the What not to Web Remix event put on by MIT Enterprise Forum and Super Webomatic.  Learn how to leverage your website as a business tool and how to maximize your website’s value.  With other panelists from Performable, Fresh Tilled Soil and Super Webomatic, you’re sure to walk away with a lot of valuable information at this event.

Check out the makeovers from last year’s event.  Think your website could use a makeover too? Submit it here.

Tickets are $45 for non-members and $25 for members but if you tweet at JonathanCKay or Grasshopper we can hook you up with a discount code so you can go for FREE.

Details

• When: Tuesday, July 26th at 5:30 PM
• Where: MIT Stata Center – Kirsch Auditorium Building 32, RM 123, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
• Website: http://www.whatnottoweb.com/

Building an Army of Brand Loyalists

Next Wednesday, we’re hosting an event with MassChallenge that you won’t want to miss.  Learn how to get people talking about your brand from Jonathan Kay, Kristin Dziadul of Backupify and Sarah Hodges of RunKeeper. You’ll leave this event with tons of actionable ideas on things you should be doing to generate word of mouth around your brand. If that doesn’t interest you, maybe the free drinks and snacks will?

Details

• When: Wednesday, July 27th at 6:30 PM
• Where: ONE Marina Park Drive at FAN PIER – 55 Northern Ave, Boston, MA 02210
• Website:http://grasshopperbuzzevent.eventbrite.com/

Planning to attend any of these events? Have any questions? Tweet us @Grasshopper, post on our Facebook wall, or leave a comment below.

This week, the buzz team will be heading down to Atlanta for one of our favorite conferences, LessConf which takes place April 28th – 30th. Three days of awesomeness, especially with a host like Allan Branch. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, be sure read his Twitter feed.  He’s pretty entertaining.  The attendees are in for a treat!

Grasshopper will be hosting the opening party on Thursday the 28th, and we’ll be giving out a free drink ticket on top of some delicious apps!  Be nice to the buzz team, and who knows, maybe you’ll get two free drinks on us!

Details

When: April 28 – 30th

Where: Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA

Website: http://lessconf.lesseverything.com/

Party Details

When: 7 PM on Thursday, April 28th

Where: Ri Ra

Website: http://www.rira.com/rira/atlanta.html

Are you lucky enough to be attending? Be sure to come find us and say hi! You can also tweet at us at @GrasshopperBuzz.

This past weekend the Grasshopper Buzz team headed out to the mid-west for the sold out BarCamp Omaha. For those of you wondering, what’s a BarCamp? It’s an “unconference”, meaning that presentations are given throughout the day by willing attendees instead of pre-planned speakers.  It’s a great place to network, speak if you’re interested and just hang out with other entrepreneurs & business folks.

Opening Party

We arrived in Omaha, NE on Friday afternoon excited to meet the entrepreneurial community and eat some delicious Omaha steak. The team headed over to the Nomad Lounge where Grasshopper Group was hosting the BarCamp opening night party. To our surprise, we were not only greeted by welcoming BarCamp staffers and eager attendees but also by some Ducati bikes and a crowd of motorcycle aficionados – unbeknownst to us, we were sharing our venue with the “Ducati Night of Celebration!” The night was a ton of fun and we met some really cool entrepreneurs doing great things in the local community and throughout the country.

BarCamp

BarCamp kicked off bright and early Saturday morning back at Nomad Lounge. The day was divided into three tracks, creative, entrepreneurship and technology. We heard so many great presentations and our very own Jonathan Kay even joined in on the fun and signed up to talk about the future of engagement. As always, his presentation was full of energy and definitely a crowd pleaser.

• Me, @Cariador and @brittenwolf with one of our favorite #bco10 speakers (Jonathan Kay @GrasshopperBuzz): http://yfrog.com/jazeabj
• @GrasshopperBuzz Nice job Jonathan. My favorite session so far. #bco10
• #bco10 Great presentation @grasshopperbuzz !

We started the week off with “A Website Makeover Event: The Future Face of Digital Business.”  Our Ambassador of Buzz, Jonathan Kay, was one of four presenters at this event.   Be sure to check out his presentation, as he throws us under the bus discussing our progression as a company, what we’ve learned along the way, and how we have evolved.  Fresh Tilled Soil pulled together a recap of this event, so no worries if you were too busy with other events to attend this one.  All the presentations are there too.

On Thursday night, we demoed our new product Spreadable at the “Demos with a Capital M” event.  We would like to thank Mass High Tech for putting this event together, they did a great job.  This was one of the best demo and networking events we have been to.

We finished off the week strong with the “Start-Up Marketing Boot Camp: Workshop and Lessons Learned” event.  David Hauser, Sonja Jacobs, and Jonathan Kay of Grasshopper Group presented a workshop on creative content strategies.  If you missed this event, there is a great recap of all the presentations, as well as a video recap you should check out.  If you don’t have time to watch the whole video recap (although it is only about 4 minutes long), be sure to fast forward to 1:59, it is one of the biggest games of rock-paper-scissors we have ever seen!

All in all, we’d say it was a pretty chaotic, but successful week for Grasshopper Group at FutureM.  What did you all think of FutureM?

As promised, the Grasshopper Group team will be there, both to present and to check out all of the exciting things Future M has to offer. There are a number of events happening throughout the week ranging from branding to inbound marketing to web analytics (see calendar for full list). Find out where Grasshopper Group will be below:

October 7, 2010

Ambassador of Buzz Jonathan Kay will be joining Fresh Tilled Soil in what they are dubbing a “startup makeover”.

Using both fictional & real examples from the crowd, the panel will help you prepare your startup for future of the digital world. Learn about web design, community engagement, offline engagement, analytics, tools and more.

Want your website critiqued? Submit your site beforehand & view the design makeover during the event. Email FutureM@freshtilledsoil.com.

Details

• When: Thursday, October 7, 2010, 1 – 5pm
• Where: Sampson & Paul Rooms – Microsoft – 1 Memorial Drive Floor 1, Cambridge MA
• Website:  Website Makeover Event

October 7, 2010

Grasshopper Group will be demoing Spreadable Thursday night at Mass High Tech’s Future M Demo Night. Watch out world!

The event will be a great place to check out some cool new products and mingle with others in the tech industry along with digital marketing & media company execs.

Details

• When: Thursday, October 7, 2010 5:30pm – 7:30pm
• Where: Office Environments of New England, 22 Boston Wharf Road, Boston, MA 02110
• Website: Mass High Tech Event Site

October 8, 2010

Co-founder David Hauser, Ambassador of Buzz Jonathan Kay & Creative Consultant Sonja Jacob will be featured in an interactive workshop aimed at helping B2B startups “navigate the new world of marketing”. The session will include eight different workshops, each featuring different speakers and topics, and will use real examples and questions from the audience.

The Grasshopper Group session, “Designed to Spread: Creative Content Strategies” will run from 1-1:30 and will cover both business and user-generated content strategies.

Details

• When:  Friday, October 8, 2010, 9am – 4:30pm
• Where:  Microsoft NERD Center – 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA
• Website:  Start-Up Boot Camp

*What Future M events will you be attending?

Tahoe Tech Talk 2010

September 30 – October 1

With offices in Boston, we don’t get to hang out with our west coast friends as often as we’d like. So, we thought we’d head out to Nevada for the Tahoe Tech Talk event and listen to some of the really great speakers there, including Gary Vaynerhcuk, Kevin Rose & Dave McClure to name a few.

Anyone want to grab some dinner on Friday?

The buzz team will be getting in Friday and along with our friends over at Storenvy, are looking to grab dinner with fellow attendees. Interested? Hit up @Grasshopperbuzz or @srbullis. Also be sure to check out their live tweets using hashtag #tahoetechtalk.

Details

• When: September 30 – October 1, 6 pm registration
• Where: Harrah’s Lake Tahoe
• Website: http://tahoetechtalkconf.com/

TECHCocktail Austin

October 07, 2010

If you are familiar with the Grasshopper Group blog you may have heard us talk about TECHCocktail before.

This time we are headed to Texas for TECHCocktail Austin. Director of Marketing Jeremy Butler & Brand Strategist Mike Arsenault will be demoing Spreadable & Grasshopper Group will be holding the TECHCocktail startup breakfast in our Austin office.

Details

• When: Thursday, October 7th, 2010 – 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. CT
• Where: Hudson on Fifth, 301 W 5th St, Austin, TX
• Website: EventBrite

]]> http://grasshopper.com/blog/2010/09/grasshopper-group-where-are-we-this-week-9-27/feed/ 0 http://grasshopper.com/blog/2010/09/grasshopper-group-where-are-we-this-week-9-23/ http://grasshopper.com/blog/2010/09/grasshopper-group-where-are-we-this-week-9-23/#comments Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:07:17 +0000 Gary G http://grasshoppergroup.com/?p=1564 BizTechDay NYC 2010

Friday September 24, 2010

This Friday, the Grasshopper Buzz team & Chargify will be taking over New York City for BizTechDay NYC 2010.

What is BizTechDay?

According to the website, it’s “…an intensive one-day experience where entrepreneurs meet to inspire and be inspired by each other.” but in reality it’s much more than that.

BizTechDay brings together some of the best business minds and puts them in one place for a day. Ten 30-minute sessions given by thought leaders including Seth Godin, Peter Shankman & Scott Heiferman are broken up by 5-minute demos of new products, including Chargify.

Look for Michael Klett of Chargify presenting a great demo of our recurring billing product and answering any questions people may have.

The buzz team will also be there live tweeting so be sure to follow @GrasshopperBuzz and @SRBullis (BizTechDay hashtag #BTD).

BarCamp Tampa Bay 2010

Saturday September 25th – Sunday September 26

Nothing follows a full day at a conference like an unconference!

What is BarCamp?

BarCamp Tampa Bay, is an “unconference, which means that there are presentations throughout the day but they are done by willing attendees instead of pre-planned speakers.” It’s a great place to network, speak if you want to speak and just hang out with other entrepreneurs & business folks.

Grasshopper Group is sponsoring the “half-time” party that will be taking place Saturday night at the New World Brewery. Be sure to come hang out, have a few drinks,  grab some food and have a good time with the rest of the BarCampers.

The buzz team will also be there so be sure to stop and say hello!

From the brilliant minds of Michael Gaiss of Highland Capital Partners and Seth Priebatsch of Boston-based startup Scvngr comes THE QUEST, a high-tech mobile scavenger hunt, raising money for entrepreneur programs in and around Boston.

In its second year, this fundraiser and community-building exercise brings together Boston area entrepreneurial and innovation leaders to collaborate, compete, and celebrate the region as a hub of global innovation. Teams compiled of entrepreneurs, techies, business leaders and other members of academia compete in challenges that require participants to work together by visiting locations based on a series of questions and clues.

THE QUEST kicks off in the Kendall Square neighborhood of Cambridge, MA, at 4:00 PM on Thursday September 23rd.

Why you should get involved

Who doesn’t love helping out the entrepreneurial community? This event is a great way to support the next generation of entrepreneurs, while offering an awesome team-building experience and providing an opportunity to expand your network.

Similar to last year’s event, which yielded approximately 400 participants, all proceeds will help assist not-for-profit and local universities that focus on promoting and advancing entrepreneurship in the region. Last year’s youth-focused entrepreneurial program recipients included, NFTE, TiE Young Entrepreneurs, NECINA YES, Youth CITIES. THE QUEST 2009 also donated proceeds to University-focused entrepreneurial programs including, Emerson (E3), Northeastern, Olin, Suffolk, UMass-Boston.

Can’t find anyone to team up with? No worries. Use hashtag #QUEST10 to connect with others via Twitter. Or, when you sign up for the event, you can register as an individual and organizers will match you up with a team.

Why we got involved

We stumbled upon the site through a Tweet from @BOSWomenPreneur and after about five seconds of reading we realized that practically every organization we’ve ever worked with in the Boston entrepreneurial community is participating.  Needless to say we were quite impressed!

So, after a little research and a motivating phone call with Michael Gaiss, Grasshopper Group couldn’t wait to be involved. Unfortunately, the team will be out of town during the event.  However, we’re so proud of all the participants coming out to support entrepreneurship and our community that we’ve joined the cause as a Brand Sponsor.

Since Grasshopper Group won’t physically be there to participate, we’re offering our support with discounted phone services for those interested in trying Grasshopper and free beta invites to our newest product Spreadable, a word of mouth marketing tool. Stay tuned for more details on the event’s registration page to see how you can get a taste of some of what Grasshopper Group has to offer.

So, are you up for the challenge? Want more info – You can get updates from The QUEST by following them on Twitter at @JoinTHEQUEST.

Web Innovators Group

Along with demos from three startups, Grasshopper Group co-founder David Hauser will be speaking on the first-ever Web Innovators panel, “Self-Funded Success Stories”. Moderated by Laura Fitton, Founder/CEO of oneforty, the panel will focus on three entrepreneurs who were able to successfully build a business without venture backing. Tickets are still available for tonight’s group, see details below:

• When: Monday September 13, 2010
• Time: Doors open at 6:30
• Where: Royal Sonesta Cambridge, MA
• Details: http://webinno27.eventbrite.com/

Mass Innovation Night

Mass Innovation Nights occur the second Wednesday of every month and allow local startups to showcase their new products. As each month is based on a theme, this week there are some really great mobile “innovations” that will be  demonstrated (join.me, TrustedOnes & Neuron Robotics to name a few). Attendees are able to vote beforehand on who will get to spend five minutes presenting their product (voting is still open).

Several members of Grasshopper Group will be there to check out what’s new & network with other local entrepreneurs. Details for the event are as follows:

• When: Wednesday September 15, 2010
• Time: 6:30-8:30 pm
• Where: Microsoft The NERD Center – Cambridge, MA
• Details: http://massinnovationnights.com/event-rsvp

Business Across Borders

Put on by INC. magazine and DHL, the Business Across Borders series is taking place in several cities across the US, including Boston. The event will feature a panel discussion and Q & A session based around building your business internationally and will include several leaders from Inc. 5000 companies.

The Grasshopper Group buzz team will be there to check out the panel and network with other local companies.

• When: Thursday September 15, 2010
• Time: 6-9 pm
• Where: Westin Copley Place Hotel
• Details: Event Details & Registration Page

Where will you be this week? At any of these events?

Spreadable, the latest product from Grasshopper Group, is a word-of-mouth marketing tool that will help you and your customers spread the word about your business. And we are giving you a sneak preview.

The Spreadable Private Launch Party

Tomorrow night we are offering our customers & friends the opportunity to come hang out in downtown Boston, network & get a peek at Spreadable. Along with FREE wine and beer there will be tons of…what else? Spreads! We’ll be giving several demos and handing out 10 beta invites to Spreadable.

What: Spreadable Launch Party Date: August 26, 2010 Time: 6:30 PM Place: The Entrepreneur Loving Workbar of Boston- 711 Atlantic Ave, Boston MA To Register: http://spreadablelaunch.eventbrite.com/

For more information or questions, contact Grasshopper’s Ambassador of Buzz, Jonathan Kay @grasshopperbuzz.

Social Fresh Charlotte is a one-day social media conference in North Carolina on August 16, that will feature various speakers talking about social media and providing us with their expert advice.

One of these experts is our very own Ambassador of Buzz, Jonathan Kay, @grasshopperbuzz who will be speaking about the use of web videos for marketing (think New Dork video).

Along with Jonathan there will be a ton of great speakers and great topics. Here’s some more info on the event:

Who’s it for?

Anyone who wants to learn about leveraging social media! Not just bloggers, social media consultants, or startups.

What kinds of topics will be discussed?

Topics include:

• Turning social media into a company wide platform
• Social media tools
• Implementing a social media strategy in your company
• Using social media for customer service
• Web video for marketing
• Product Demo
• Keynote speaker Amber Naslund

…and more!

Who else will be there?

Other speakers include Social Fresh founder Jason Keath, Shawn McPike of AT&T, Blue Sky Factory CEO Greg Cangialosi, Open-First CEO Ted Shelton, and many other social media experts!

How do I register?

To register, visit the online registration site http://www.amiando.com/sofresh-charlotte.html. Hurry though…tickets are selling out fast!

*Update*

Check out some of the great recaps from the conference:

• What I learned at Social Fresh Charlotte
• Social Fresh: Web video for marketing
• Social Fresh Charlotte Recap
• Social Media in the Queen City of the South

As one of the “Showcased Startups”, Chargify will have a table set up to answer questions and network with other entrepreneurs from the area.

Be sure to watch Twitter as they live tweet the event using the hashtag #teckcocktail. As a bonus, anyone who takes a picture with the Chargify bull head and tweets it to @chargify, will get a free t-shirt.

For more information check out the Chargify blog or visit the TECH cocktail EventBrite page.

So what’s the point? The point is that Word of Mouth will be crucial to the success of your start up (And remember it’s FREE marketing). As you may know, Grasshopper Group’s mission is to create products and services that are necessary to your success as entrepreneurs. This is exactly why we have done two things to help you become a WOM rock star

Read the entire post over at Grasshopper Group

Here at Grasshopper, we are all about trying to find new ways to help entrepreneurs succeed. However, one thing we’ve always believed in since day one is that creating buzz and WOM traffic for your brand is essential. It was crucial in getting Grasshopper off the ground and 7 years later is still a key to our success. In fact it’s so damn important to us that we have gone as far as to create a program to help you, our customers gain press!

To help share some wisdom about creating buzz we decided to partner with MassChallenge, another organization 100% devoted to supporting small business. MassChallenge and our Buzz Team have rallied some local experts together and are putting on a really interactive (and FREE) event for you guys next week.

The event will be MC’ed by our very own Ambassador of Buzz, Jonathan Kay and will include 4 short (10 minute) presentations followed by a Q & A with Jonathan. There will be tons of time to network and the event will be capped off by bringing all of the speakers on the stage for a panel. At this point all questions will come from the audience so really start to think about what information you want to learn from our “experts”! See below for topics, event details, and a link to register:

• Location: Microsoft NERD Center: One Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA

• Date: Wednesday, June 23rd

• Time: 6-9pm

• Speakers & Topics:

  - Jay Wilder – “How to Clone Yourself”

  - Michael Trojano – “How to Take your Brand from Interesting to Imperative”

  - David Hauser: “PR is Dead. Why Sales and Social Networking is Killing Traditional PR”

  - Kip Bodnar: “How to Use Creative Content to Jumpstart Your Business”

• Registration: http://buildbuzz.eventbrite.com/

Hope to see you there!

Well, the Grasshopper Buzz Team is at it again. We are heading to another city (or country in this case) to meet local entrepreneurs and share some free drinks! Only this time it’s a bit more exciting than usual…

For the first time in Grasshopper History (–> Insert Star Wars Theme Music) we’re going to be able to offer Local Canadian Numbers (currently in beta but available to everyone in the next couple of months)!! We decided in honor of the occasion we needed to do something fun.

So what did we do?

We partnered with a great organization and decided to throw a fun event. We joined forces with the Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF). Not only are the folks over there just as passionate about helping entrepreneurs as we are, but they do some great things to inspire & mentor young Toronto entrepreneurs.

On June 1st at 6pm Grasshopper and CYBF will take over the roof deck of The London Tap House. It’s an unbelievable venue, and the local entrepreneurs who run the place have been really awesome in working with us. Our event is 100% free and all entrepreneurs, innovators, and small business owners are welcome! You can reserve your spot and see all the details here: http://ghcanada.eventbrite.com/.

A few highlights of the night:

• 30 Minute Panel:

  Made up of young, engaging and passionate local entrepreneurs

• Topic:

  “How to build a community and WOM (word of mouth) around your brand!”

• Our Panelists:

  Saul Colt – Thoora.com’s Head of Magic @saulcolt

  Erin Bury – Community Manger at Sprouter @erin_bury

  Anthony Del Col – Founder of Kill Shakespeare @killshakespeare

• Free Drinks!

  The first 100 people will get their first drink free!!

If you have any questions, comments, thoughts, concerns, or brilliant ideas feel free to reach out to myself (Jonathan Kay – @grasshopperbuzz – jkay(at)grasshopper(dot)com) or Rachel Azagury (@CYBFcanada or razagury(at)cybf(dot)ca).

Please feel free to pass this invitation on to any friends, colleagues, or random aquantances you know in Toronto that might want to come. Register for your free ticket here: http://ghcanada.eventbrite.com/

Silicon Valley Boomer Business Plan Competition

Who is it for?

Anyone 18 years or older from around the globe with a business plan that shows the 45-plus market as the primary market for the product or service. Current annual revenues must be no more than $1 million.

How to enter?

Executive summary submissions are due via YouNoodle

Deadline: April 23, 2010

Link to competition: Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit – Business Plan Competition

Cisco I-Prize

Who is it for?

Anyone 18 years of age or older submitting an idea or proposal that falls into one of these categories:

• The Future of Work: New solutions that accelerate and change the way we do business
• The Connected Life: Technological inspirations that dramatically improve living conditions and disseminate culture
• New Ways to Learn: Next-generation solutions that transform when, where, and how people learn.
• The Future of Entertainment: New solutions that change how people play together

How do you enter?

Register here

Deadline: April 30,2010

Link to competition: Cisco I – Prize

Conoco Phillips Energy Prize Contest

Who is it for?

Legal residents of the 50 United States and District of Columbia who are at least 18 years of age or older at the time of entry.

Each individual entrant or team of entrants must submit a comprehensive proposal (no more than 2,000 words) for a Concept, which for purposes of this Contest is defined as follows: a technology, process or method that identifies a new alternative and/or renewable energy source or a new way to develop an alternative and/or renewable energy source; determines a way to use any type of energy source more efficiently; and/or combats climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

How to enter?

Enter online – http://www.contesttechnology.com/energyprize10/

Enter by mail – send your Submission and Registration Information to: Conoco Phillips Energy Prize Contest Entries P.O.Box 9302 Medford, NY 11763-9302

Deadline: May 21,2010

Link to competition: Conoco Phillips Energy Prize Contest

Clean Tech Open Business Competition

Who is it for?

United States residents, citizens, or legal aliens looking to turn their clean tech idea into a thriving business can apply. Teams must consist of one Team Leader and at least one other team member (two people total). All entries must meet one of the competition’s six clean technology category definitions and be a startup with less than $500,000 from outside funding (some exceptions apply).

How do you enter?

Register here

Deadline: May 22,2010

Link to competition: Clean Tech Open

IBM SmartCamp

Who is it for?

SmartCamp is open to early stage companies. Early stage means a company not more than 3 years old as of March 1st, 2010 with a maximum turnover of USD $1,000,000 in the last 12 months. Companies invited to the interview stage or beyond must be able to produce a current tax clearance certificate.

How do you enter?

Applying to Smart Camp could not be simpler! Simply visit http://smartcamp.seedcamp.com and register your company.

Deadline: Registration opens March 18, 2010 – 5 companies from each participating city will be announced June 3, 2010.

Link to competition: IBM Smart Camp

WJF Socially Responsible Business Plan Competitions

Who is it for?

Any business that:

• Is for-profit
• Is less than one year from your first revenue (or not have launched at all)
• Cannot have accepted more than $20,000 in equity or debt investment from individuals who are not part of the day-to-day management team.
• Seeks both financial viability and a defined social and/or environmental goal. Our baseline for financial viability is a firm where managers make at least a middle-class living, employees make at least a living wage and vendors and customers are generally satisfied with their interactions with the firm.
• Can be described in English. (We hope to remove this requirement eventually.)

How do you enter?

To submit your executive summary, send it by email to competition@williamjamesfoundation.org Entries must be readable by Microsoft Word 2003 or Adobe PDF reader.

Deadline: June 4th, 2010

Link to competition: WJF Business Plan Competition

MassChallenge

Who is it for?

Anyone (although they say their goal to support high-potential seed and early stage start ups) that has:

• Less than $500K of aggregate investment to date (grants not included, except for non-profit entrants)
• Less than $1M in revenue over last 12 months

How to enter?

Register here

Deadline: Mid-June 2010

Link to competition: Mass Challenge

Shopify Build a Business Contest

Who is it for?

Anyone with a Shopify online store, winner will be judged on two highest months of online store revenue

How to enter?

Create a Shopify store account online

Deadline: Competition runs through June 30, 2010

Link to competition: Shopify – Build a Business

NYC Next Idea 2010

Who is it for? Graduate Track:

• Teams with 2-5 participants
• Team members must be graduate students or alumni of a participating university
• Each team must have at least one full time or part-time graduate student
• Preference for business ideas in: Financial Services, Green, Not-for-profit, Bioscience, Fashion, and Media and Technology
• Business plans must have a NYC operational and/or marketing component

Undergraduate Track:

• Teams with 2-5 participants
• Team members must be undergraduate students or alumni of a participating university
• Each team must have at least one full time or part-time undergraduate student
• Preference for business ideas in: Financial Services, Green, Not-for-profit, Bioscience, Fashion, and Media and Technology
• Business plans must have a NYC operational and/or marketing component

How to enter

Enter here - NYC Next Idea 2010

Deadline: October 1, 2010

Link to competition: http://www.nycedc.com/BUSINESSINNYC/FORINTERNATIONALBUSINESSES/NYCNEXTIDEA/Pages/NYCNextIdea2010.aspx

LES Foundation 2011 Competition

Who is it for?

To participate entrants must submit a comprehensive business plan with a core intellectual property (IP) licensing component. Entries are evaluated by seasoned industry professionals, who provide valuable feedback to each team. Entries are judged on a variety of factors including attractiveness of the venture, quality of the product/service offered, market opportunity and investment potential.

How to Enter:

Contact Linda Chao at bplan@lesfoundation.org

Deadline: March 4, 2011

Link to competition: LES Foundation 2011 – Business Plan Competition

As you know, we are always trying to make efforts to empower you with the information and tools you need to succeed. Anything from connecting you with companies we think are cool to suggesting interesting books to read. One thing I would personally like to start recommending more of is events and meet-ups where you can meet other entrepreneurs and learn from successful ones.

I know sometimes it seems like all the “cool” things are happening in either Silicon Valley or somewhere in the North East. However, Big Omaha 2010 (http://www.bigomaha.com/) is the exception to this preconceived notion. The Big Omaha is proving that the Midwest is crawling with passionate people. In fact at last year’s inaugural event they brought together over 400 innovators, creatives, and entrepreneurs.

What I love most is their mission: “Inspire attendees to follow their passions, build the businesses they love, and strengthen their creative communities.”

If you are in the area from May 13th-May 15th and can make it I would definitely suggest grabbing a ticket (they are under $300): http://bigomaha.eventbrite.com/

Tickets include access to:

• Thurs, May 13, 7pm – Opening party at Slowdown
• Friday, May 14, 8:30am – 5:30pm – Speakers at KANEKO
• Friday, May 14, 5:30pm – 6:30pm – Happy Hour at Urban Wine
• Friday, May 14, 9pm – Big Party at Nomad Lounge
• Saturday, May 15, 8:30am -12:30pm – Speakers at KANEKO

Highlights of speaker list:

• Scott Harrison of Charity:Water @scottharrison (side note:…Charity water is an amazing example of social entrepreneurship and I very much enjoyed hearing them speak in the past)
• Gary Vaynershuk of Winelibrary TV @garyvee
• Jason Fried of 37 Signals @jasonfried
• David Hauser of Grasshopper @dh (I am biased so I won’t comment!)
• Matt Mullenweg of Automattic @photomatt (The company behind WordPress)

See the full list of speakers here: http://www.bigomaha.com/ and feel free to reach out to the conference organizers at: @siliconprairie or @slobotski

I was fortunate recently to be introduced to Robert Pagliarini, one of the many successful entrepreneurs using our Virtual Phone System. Robert is most well known for writing “The Other 8 Hours”, a book about understanding the critical link between financial results and what employees do offline. In addition to his successes with this book, Robert also wrote the #1 national bestselling personal finance book, “The Six-Day Financial Makeover”.

What’s even cooler is that Robert is equally as passionate about entrepreneurship as we are! That is why when we first spoke we thought it would be awesome for him and our co-founder David Hauser to have a casual conversation about entrepreneurship and make it available for free to all of you. We were discussing potential topics for the webinar when we realized something…if the webinar is for YOU, why should we pick the topic?

It didn’t seem right to us, so we decided to open it up for a vote! We need your opinion, tell us what topic you would be most interested in hearing Robert and David discuss:

Webinar Date / Time: April 6th from 1pm EST to 1:45pm EST

Voting Period Ends: April 2nd at 5pm EST

Free Sign Up / Registration Page: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/262493697

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or suggestions @grasshopperbuzz or jkay(at)grasshopper.com

Being in the Buzz, Community, and Viral Marketing world one thing I have always struggled with is how to really get noticed at a big conference. Most recently was South by South West (SXSW), a technology, music, and film festival jammed into one, hosted every year in Austin, TX. In fact SXSW is so big that the technology industry nearly comes to a halt for a week. Even Peter Shankman (founder and writer of HARO) had his publisher send out the updates for him. That never happens!

We knew there would be 20k-30k tech entrepreneurs in the same place, but the question was “How do you compete with the Microsoft, Adobe, Kodak, AOL, and all the college students passing out free Zone Perfect Bars?” The only thing we knew was we didn’t want to give SXSW Incorporated $10-20,000 to have a boring booth or table.

What We Did:

We wanted to create buzz for Chargify (the first company out of the Grasshopper Labs Division), as we knew our target customers were more technical than with Grasshopper.

First, we contacted FaceMakers Inc, who helped us design a custom mascot costume (see above). Then we nailed down a fun & central location in Austin to have a gathering. We (me as the matador and Charlie the Bull) spent the next 4 days running around (literally) the streets of Austin and the Convention Center interacting with everyone and anyone we could. “Interacting” is the key word here.

Have Clear Goals / Expectations:

When being ridiculous and doing a big stunt you need to have clear goals in mind, otherwise you can easily find yourself losing focus and not gaining as much value as you originally hoped. We went into this knowing a few things:

1. We didn’t want to just hand things out

2. We didn’t want to sell anything

3. We wanted to have fun, and wanted people to have fun with us. Hence everyone who proactively engaged or interacted with us was invited to our “secret” party on Monday where we had endless free beer & wine.

4. We wanted people to remember “The Green Bull & Chargify”

Throughout our trip we made sure whatever we were doing was helping advance one of these objectives.

Be Controversial:

Controversy is interesting right? Why else would “Gilbert Arenas Gun” return over a million search results and “Tiger Woods Scandal” nearly 6 million? Believe it or not to a certain extent controversy can actually be intriguing and memorable. That is why our Bull and Matador gallivanted around the Austin Convention Center every single day, regardless of the fact that we were kicked out every single day. The final day by the police…whoops! But it made for a great photo opp.

Have Fun:

One thing our CEO, Siamak Taghaddos said that stuck with me was “When it stops being fun, either change it up or do something else.” When you are having fun, people around you will as well…it’s just infectious. This theory was proven accurate last week at SXSW. We were having fun and as a result masses of people would proactively come up to us and want to engage us, take pictures, ask questions, etc.

Need the Right People (Passion + Knowledge):

It’s important to have the right people who can help you excel in the objectives you’ve previously identified. In this case we needed the following:

• 2 passionate and energetic young adults who were capable (and not easily embarrassed) of running around in costume for multiple days being loud / ridiculous.

• 1 of the 2 people (in this case the Matador) to be an educated company ambassador who could not only speak to the stunt, but the value added proposition of Chargify.

Memorable:

On top of everything it’s important to make sure you are memorable. Because at the end of the day your hope here is that when people look back at SXSW 2010 they will think “Ha…remember Chargify and that lime green bull?” So what did we do outside of dressing up in a lime green bull costume you ask?

• Our bull can do back flips…yes in costume. The local Austin news liked that one.

• We played Four Square (literally the elementary school recess game) with the Four Square team.

• We convinced Chevrolet to let us get in and have fun in their Corvette (huge success).

Oh yea and lastly…we were smiling the whole time, even our fearless mascot through the bull costume.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions: @grasshopperbuzz or jkay(at)grasshopper.com

I wanted to share with you a new initiative we are trying here at Grasshopper. It is called “Grasshopper Customers & Friends Dinner” (pretty straight forward right?). If you haven’t realized it yet we here at Grasshopper love interacting with our customers. Not only do we enjoy meeting new entrepreneurs, but some of our best business ideas have come directly from our customers.

If you have seen our “Friday Flix” you also know Grasshopper employees love good food and the occasional beer (coming soon – view of the office from Beer-Scooter Cam). So we thought, “What could we do to combine all of these things?” Hence, we arrived at “Grasshopper Sponsored Dinner”…because oh ya, everyone loves free things!

As we travel across America going to various conferences/business meetings, we are going to make an effort to have “Grasshopper Customers & Friends Dinners” along the way. Having said that, I leave you with 2 action items:

1. If you live in the Greater Boston Area we have our first dinner this Thursday (Nov. 12th), 7:30 pm at Skipjacks Seafood in Newton, MA (on 55 Needham St.)
2. RSVP here: http://ghdinner.eventbrite.com
3. If you are not in the Boston Area but are interested in this sort of thing please note in the comments section what city you are near and we will try and reach out next time we are there!

Thanks so much, and hope to see you as SkipJack’s on Thursday.

Jonathan

** jkay@grasshopper.com with any questions comments, or concerns **