My absolute favorite speaker, and role model, Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief of Huffington Post Media Group, dominated the stage with her presence and witty remarks during her interview with Henry Blodget, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider. She discussed her hands on involvement with the publication even after its acquisition by AOL and the critical importance of hiring good people. Arianna is still very much in charge of the publication and the direction it is going. Keep your eyes peeled, Huffington Period will be released soon! Huffington Period’s content and layout will be similar to the New Yorker but the purpose behind this initiative is for the reader to escape from their daily grind, take a breather, and read the publication whether it be on their iPad, smart phone, or computer.

There was an interesting segment about fundraising. The majority of the panel consisted of heads of VC firms and the CEO of Artsicle, Alexis Tryon. The VC’s expressed that in this market it is easy for startups to raise money and become venture backed. Tryon said it was difficult to get that first check but once she finally got the first investor the calls were flooding in. They also discussed situations wherein after your first round of funding it can be difficult to raise the second round. This is because once you have finalized your concept and implemented the new features you will gain a lot of users but after a bit of time the users plateau or grow bored and move on. In many cases this leads to difficulty in getting investors to contribute a substantial amount during the second round. 

Considering the technology boom is upon us once again, New York is fortunate enough to have a startup founder and technology investor and enthusiast as their mayor, Michael Bloomberg. He is doing his part to ensure Silicone Alley truly becomes a substantial player in the industry. Rachel Sterne, Chief Digital Officer of New York City, who reports directly to Bloomberg, graced us with her presence to educate the audience on all the apps created by the City of New York to help improve the city and everyday life for its citizens. Check out their designated driver application, You The Man. The rest help with eliminating potholes, public transportation, and other helpful tools. They can all be found at http://www.nyc.gov/html/mome/digital/html/apps/apps.shtml.

The day was broken up by 8 startups pitching their concept in 3 minutes to the audience and 6 judges, all well known among the tech industry. Congratulations to Candace Klein, the founder and CEO of SoMoLend, for winning the competition and leaving with $25,000! We look forward to following the company’s progress and future successes.

My hat is off to Business Insider for putting together such an action packed day in such a seamless manner. The lists of impressive speakers were inspiring and I look forward to hearing about all the new ideas that were formed that day! 

Using a script provided by the PT Council Budget Communications team, on Monday night, May 14, 2012 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm (the night before voting begins), Talener will have its NYC staff of 23+ place calls to registered voters in the Mamaroneck School District, reminding them to get out and vote the next day at their local elementary schools.

Talener has been looking for a way to give back to communities and support causes that are important to the Talener Family beyond just writing a check.  Putting our trained professional sales staff and our corporate operations staff to work to support this initiative is a fantastic initial step.  Social responsibility and community involvement are important values of Talener Group and our employees and we are happy to be able to support this “Get Out and Vote!” initiative for the Mamaroneck-Larchmont PT Council and the Murray School PTA! 

Almost 42% of all the mobile users, or about 98 million subscribers in the United States, use smartphones.  There are over 400 different smartphone devices, and the leaders of the industry are Google with their Android platform, taking almost half the market share in the US, with Apples IOS taking about 30%.  The total number of smart phone users continues to rise year over year, with last July being the first month ever that the number of smart phones purchases exceeded all other mobile purchases, and by the end of last year almost 60% of all mobile devices bought were smart phones.  There is no reason to believe that this trend will slow down anytime soon, and smartphones will eventually become the new standard. 

Mobile users engage in a wide variety of activities, from surfing the web and accessing social networking sites, to shopping and downloading content.  Nearly twice as many smartphone users are downloading and playing games compared to last year.  Streaming online music or radio is the third fastest growing activity among smartphone users and App downloads are up 53%. Companies and Brands are recognizing the importance of this new growing trend and trying to capture their share of the market by creating mobile websites and mobile applications.  Mobile websites are different than traditional websites in that they are specifically designed to be viewed and interacted with from a smartphone device.  

For many technology and internet companies, more traffic is starting to come in through the mobile avenue vs. the traditional web.  For example, Twitter’s mobile traffic is up to 55% and Pandora is up to 60%, and Facebook is seeing the same trend where about 350 million of its 800 million active users access the site through mobile channels.  Similarly, Groupon reported in December that nearly a fifth of its vouchers sold were via mobile channels.  More companies are being forced to create mobile websites in an effort to not to miss out on this growing opportunity.  A study last year found that 61% of mobile users won’t return to a site if they have trouble accessing it from their phone, highlighting how important it is for companies to build out clean and intuitive mobile websites and the need for developers specializing in mobile languages such as WML and XHMTL.

In addition to the growth of mobile websites, the mobile app market has been exploding as well.  A study found that iPhone users had an average of 44 apps and Android users had an average of 32 apps.  YouTube was the top app for the iPhone, followed by Google Maps, Facebook, and Yahoo!  Other top apps include popular games such as Angry Birds and Words with Friends.

 But the top apps were always changing, with new apps becoming popular every day.  This is great news for mobile web developers, as the constantly shifting and dynamic industry is always creating new opportunities for the next big bright idea.  With the success of Twitter, Yelp and Zynga, Venture Capitalist firms are seeking to fund multimillion dollar deals with mobile app focused companies such as Instagram, Foursquare labs, and Flipboard.  Developers specializing in Objective C, HTML +, JavaScript, and java will be in high demand as mobile focused startups continue to spring up.  Comparison shopping engine PriceGrabber.com had to outsource the development of its mobile website to a company that specializes in building mobile websites, because it had a lack of in house developers and couldn’t find the developers in time.  So this shows that internet companies are quickly looking for experiences mobile web developers that Talener can help recruit. 

For a look at the presentation click the link below:

Why companies are in need of Mobile Developers

The featured speaker at the inaugural event was Jane Silberstein, QA Manager at Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. Jane provided insights from her own successes and challenges as a woman in the technology industry, as well as spoke on the importance of creating a community for women in the field to share ideas and discuss leadership development. She commented on the amount of younger faces who have a lot to benefit from a group like WIT.

Our next WIT event will take place Thursday, March 29^th at 7pm at Talener’s NYC office. Our hope is that through this continued grass-roots initiative, women professionals will inspire each other to reach higher and speak louder. If you are interested in attending, please R.S.V.P. to Tiffany Roesler at troesler@talener.com

I plan on surfing this wave for one hell of a ride.  My mission is to spotlight Women in Technology in New York City and create a meet-up for us to connect as peers, mentors and friends.  As Marlo Thomas put it on the new Women’s Page of the Huffington-Post that launched this past August; “You need to lift up many women, not just one woman.  For women there’s safety in numbers.  If you have only one woman at the table, she’s a pest.  Two women? That’s a team. But three? Now that’s a coalition.”

This past December Caroline Turner wrote in her article, Why women abandon the C suite-and how to get them back, “Women now represent about half of the hiring pipeline, entry-level positions and total workforce.  But at each level of management, women represent a lower percentage.”

The 2011 Catalyst Census showed women representing 47.6% of today’s workforce; in the 2011 Fortune 500 women represented only 14.4 percent of executive officers, and only made up 7.6% of top earners.  The good news is that Prior Catalyst research also revealed that advancing women to leadership positions is good for women and good for business.  The census found companies with more women in top leadership positions, on average, far outperform those with fewer.  Another new Catalyst release, The Bottom Line: Corporate Performance and Women’s Representation on Boards (2004–2008), indicates that sustained gender diversity in the boardroom correlates with better corporate performance―and not by just a little. Companies with three or more women board directors in four of five years, on average, outperformed companies with zero women board directors―by 84% return on sales, 60% return on invested capital, and 46% return on equity.

My research has shown me that women even if they don’t literally leave, they disengage or just quit climbing.  As women in leadership roles, we need to strive to inspire our people and inspire our fellows.  Helping and connecting with other women in the NYC Tech frontlines will produce high level support in turn re-engaging ourselves while simultaneously making us more confident leaders

Our Time is now and these women are doing it.  Let’s take a look into who they are, where they work and what they’ve accomplished.

Arianna Huffington is the president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of thirteen books. Her news blog site has become the most widely read, linked to and frequently cited media brands on the internet.  She has been twice named to Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. 

Heather Harde

Vice President, TechCrunch

Heather Harde has help bring TechCrunch from her boss’s living room to being acquired for a reported number between $40-50 million by AOL.  Heather spent the previous decade at News Corp., where she learned much of the discipline and skills needed to turn a group of bloggers into a media powerhouse.  In Fast Company magazine Harde says, “I had an appreciation of how difficult it was to create a brand in media. TechCrunch had become a brand. It now needed to scale into a media property.”

Chloe Sladden

Media Partnerships, Twitter

Sladden is responsible for partnering Live tweeting during media broadcasts.  In 2010 she brought “Live Tweeting” to be a key part of the MTV Video Music Awards which resulted in over 11 million viewers, the highest rated show since 2002.  Sladden also pioneered the first time a major news organization partnered with Twitter during the 2008 election.  She had a call to action to vote in the morning via twitter, and then journalists followed up with a live chat in the afternoon.  She is currently working to bridge Twitter’s API and TV, news and entertainment platforms.

Rachel Sterne

Chief Digital Officer, New York City

Sterne started GroundReport in 2006 and has become the Web’s best real-time-news portals according to Fast Company Magazine.  The role has led her to be the Chief Digital Officer in New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration.

Jessica Kahn

Vice President of Engineering, Disney Mobile

Jessica Kahn is the brains behind the Tap Tap Revenge which is the most popular iPhone game.  She manages engineering, operations, and strategy.  Kahn thought she’d be a lawyer, until she took a coding class her senior year at Dartmouth.  Kahn was also an Apple software engineer for almost 10 years.

Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss

Co-Founders, Rent the Runway

This duo’s e-commerce company Rent the Runway allows women across America to rent instead of purchasing luxury designer dresses and accessories.  Hyman and Fleiss are on track to revolutionize the fashion industry.  The pair met at Harvard Business School and is taking a customer behavior of buying to renting.  Converting those I’ll only wear that once purchases into rentals.  The site works as a hotel reservation site and women can rent a dress for an occasion starting at $50 receiving the dress for up to eight days. 

Enter W.I.Ny.C;)

Let’s take action and impact ourselves and support other woman.  I present to you,  Women, Inspire, New York City – W.I.Ny.C .  A technology based meet up for Women in NYC. 

On the last Thursday of every month we will meet up and have a selected speaker lead a topical round table discussion.  W.I.Ny.C.;)’s meet up will be a place for women to share their story, future goals as well as current challenges.   Our first meet-up will be February 23, 2012 at my office, located at 11 East 44^th Street, suite 1200.  We will start at 7pm, please let me know if you would like to join us.

I can be reached at troelser@talener.com

I look forward to meeting you.

We want to wish you all a Happy Holiday Season and we look forward to working with you in the New Year.

NEW YORK, NY

- NY Tech Council Holiday Cocktail Reception (https://www.nytech.org/2011-holiday-cocktail-reception) December 15th, 2011 at 6:00pm

LOS ANGELES, CA

-2011 Holiday Event and Annual Roundup of Technologists (http://www.socaltech.com/calendar/eventid/21960)- December 14th, 2011 at 6:00pm

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

-SF New Tech’s Casino Royale (http://sfnewtech.com/2011/12/08/sf-new-techs-casino-royale-holiday-bash-1214-630p-sandbox-suites/)

Please let us know if you attend any of them, or if you know of any others that are not on this list.  We are always on the lookout for new and interesting events to share with our community here.

Have a great week!

NEW YORK, NY

- Semantic Technologies in Financial Services (http://www.meetup.com/semweb-25/events/38253942/)- December 8, 2011 at 6:30pm

-Digital Bfast: Media and Tech Preview 2012 (www.gothammediaventures.com)- December 8, 2011 at 8:30am-10:00am

LOS ANGELES, CA

-Tech Cocktal’s LA Winter Mixer sponsored by Sony (http://techcocktaillosangeles.eventbrite.com)- December 6, 2011 at 8:30pm-11:00pm

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

-The Amazing, Spectrum-Crunching Mobile-Palooza! (http://sfnewtech.com/2011/11/16/12-7-sf-new-tech-mobile-details-coming-soon/)-

December 7, 2011 at 5:30pm-11:00pm

Please let us know if you attend any of them, or if you know of any others that are not on this list.  We are always on the lookout for new and interesting events to share with our community here.

Have a great week!

http://livestre.am/18quJ

Please skip past the first 4 minutes as it illustrates our technical difficulties.