FountainBlue's Virtual Worlds Conference

FountainBlue's Virtual Worlds Annual Conference is scheduled for this Friday, September 25, from 8:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. and will be held at Sun Microsystems in Santa Clara. Founded in January 2006, FountainBlue was established "to foster transformative change for high-tech, life science and clean energy decision-makers one conversation, one leader, one organization at a time". The company produced its first virtual world's event in March of this year and also produces monthly events, provides support to communities, consults, and facilitates connections between people and organizations. FountainBlue was founded by CEO Linda Holroyd who characterizes herself as "a serial entrepreneur", and works avidly with entrepreneurial and leadership organizations. She is also an adviser to clean energy companies in the solar and transportation sectors.

I first came across Ms Holroyd when she'd posted an announcement for the event in one of the several LinkedIn groups I belong to and I contacted her through e-mail. We exchanged several e-mails over the next few weeks and when she'd asked if I would be interested in helping with the event I readily agreed. She'd asked me to work with the submitting entrepreneurs, vetting their submissions and in mentoring them as they prepared for presenting their business plan during the conference. I volunteered to work with one of the submitters, SL resident Tessa Harrington (aka Theresa Kinney-Johnson), developer of the virtual world, SpotON3D™. I'd met with and interviewed Ms Harrington for an article earlier this year. SpotON3D™ was one of the winning submissions and will present their business plan at the conference.

Here's the list of winning submissions that went out via e-mail from FountainBlue:

In the Consumer, Six to Twelve Category: Sherry Gunther, CEO, Masher Media
In the Consumer, Teenagers to Adult Category: Troy Hipolito, CTO and Owner, ISO Interactive
In the Enterprise, Virtual Events and Tradeshows Category: Terry Thorpe, KohdSpace
In the Enterprise, Virtual Meetings Category: Dustin Clingman, Immediate Mode Interactive LLC
In the Enterprise, Other Category (Collaboration in Health Care): Brian Bauer, OnTrack Health
In the Enterprise, Other Category (Virtual Real Estate and Office Tools): Stevan Lieberman, CEO, SpotON3D

I caught up with Linda late last week for a phone conversation and we discussed the upcoming event and FountainBlue.

Nazz: This is FountainBlue's first "annual" conference dealing with virtual worlds, had you sponsored any previous events?

Linda: This is our second virtual world event and it is has been a challenge. We've never done anything to this depth before on virtual worlds with two morning panels. One on "What is it, Where Has it Been?" and the second one is, "Where Will Virtual Worlds Take Us". As part of the conference, we will also feature corporate exhibits on virtual worlds and profile six entrepreneurs, the winners of the business plan competition.

Nazz: That does sound like challenge, did FountainBlue do all of the work?

Linda: We've had twenty volunteers to help with the program, including you. People who've helped organize, recruit panelists and mentor the entrepreneurs. My role has been to lead and support the team.

Nazz: How and when did FountainBlue become interested in virtual worlds?

Linda: It was about a year ago, we'd of course been interested in Web 2.0. We saw virtual worlds as an emerging technology and as a progression from social networking to what gamers are doing. We had our first event in March of this year where we targeted virtual world entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and investors on the "The Hype, The Reality, The In-Between" of virtual worlds. That panel featured leaders from several large technology companies as well as a former Second Life executive. My husband is involved with a virtual world start-up, and through his activities it's exciting to see how the industry is evolving.

Nazz: I see that Sun is hosting the event at one of their facilities, how did you get connected with them?

Linda: Sun hosted our January clean energy event and connected us to right players to help us organize for this event. Sun is very active in virtual worlds.

Nazz: What's next for FountainBlue?

Linda: We're going to continue to produce and run events for Silicon Valley companies and FountainBlue also provides consulting to companies that produce events. I've been writing a series of books on leadership, entrepreneurship and the FountainBlue community is growing.

Nazz: Any other comments?

Linda: Please, when you post this, add a note that registration ends on the 24th at noon, no exceptions walk-ins will be turned away.

FountainBlue’s First Annual Virtual Worlds Conference

FountainBlue's Virtual Worlds Annual Conference on the topic of Virtual Worlds: Where We Were, Where We're Going, What Does It Mean to YOU?, is scheduled for Friday, September 25, 2009, from 8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. at Sun Microsystems, 4030 George Sellon Circle, in Santa Clara.

Location and Parking
Sun Microsystems is located at 4030 George Sellon Circle, and parking is available along Palm Drive and in the Building 22 parking lot on the southwest side of the Auditorium. Limited parking is also available on George Sellon Circle, west of the Auditorium. A map and directions is available at http://upcoming.yahoo.com/venue/20041.

Agenda

If you are planning to attend the whole event, please arrive between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m. and stand up to network to ensure that you have an optimal networking opportunity. We have a very full agenda, so please assist with keeping our program on time.

Please allow yourself to be herded efficiently to and from networking and other sessions.

Please help us start the program promptly at 8:30 and help us move through the welcomes, a presentation, two panels, a break, a lunch and an entrepreneur pitch session.

Please disarm all electronic devices which might interrupt our conversation.

If you have to come late, leave early, or otherwise enter in the middle of a session, we thank you if you could do so as discretely as possible.

We welcome you to excuse yourself quietly during the program and have set up demo tables for the presenting entrepreneurs upstairs. Please feel free to visit the demos throughout the day, but the doors will close at 12:15, just prior to the entrepreneur presentations.

A rough agenda is below for your reference.

8:00 Registration and Networking

8:30 Welcomes and Thank Yous

8:45 Presentation on Virtual Worlds – What is it, Where Has it Been?

9:15 First Panel Discussion: Virtual World Business Trends

10:15 Morning Break, with Corporate Exhibits

10:30 Second Panel Discussion: Virtual World Case Studies

11:30 Lunch Break, Featuring Corporate Presentations

12:30 Entrepreneur Presentations

2:30 Adjourn and Further Networking until 3:00; Exhibits will stay open until 3:30 p.m.

Internet Access

Sun Santa Clara campus has graciously provided an on-site wireless network called "sunwifi". After you have connected to that network and have opened a web browser it will ask you to register as a guest user. Once you have filled out a small registration form it will allow you to fully access the internet for up to 12 hours. We will also have a table in the back with access to power for re-charging.

Please do not leave your laptop plugged in, and extend the cord down the aisle as it is a fire and safety hazard. Thank you.

Please be courteous about how often you use it and how long you plug it in so that the maximum amount of people may have access.

Demo Tables

We will have four demo tables downstairs: Sun, Stanford, CloudMach and IdeaBuilder. You are welcome to visit the demo tables during breaks and throughout the event. Thank you for doing this discreetly during presentations.

Each of the presenting entrepreneurs will also have demos on display in the upstairs conference room, from around 8:15 until around 12:15, just before the presentations start. You are welcome to visit the demo room and ask questions during those times.

Your Contact Information

To encourage ongoing connections, we are providing the attached attendee contact information in soft copy format. You are welcome to forward these confirmation details and the invitation below to interested others, but please DO NOT FORWARD the contact list to ANYONE, as we have permission only to share with other attendees. In addition, please let me know if you change your mind and would prefer not to share your e-mail and phone number with the group and it will not be included with the final notes sent to the attendees.

Networking Policy:

Although we encourage everyone to network, please practice the 'tell, not sell' policy, and do not aggressively promote your organization or its products and services during introductions, during the networking time, or afterwards via e-mail. Please let us know over e-mail if you aggressively approached by a fellow attendee so that we can directly address any violations in our policy while keeping your input anonymous. Thank you for your support and cooperation as it will help ensure ongoing quality networking experiences for everyone.

FountainBlue Membership:

If you elected to share your contact information, we have invited you to join the FountainBlue community on BigTent. If you have not received an invitation, please check your spam folder, or visit http://tinyurl.com/cbb5ua
and select the 'resend existing invitation link' at the bottom of that page. Membership costs are $40 annually or $90 for an ongoing membership, and are prorated. Membership benefits, including a $5-$10 discount for each FountainBlue event, are highlighted at http://www.fountainblue.biz/aboutus/membership.html.

Please Promote:

The quality of the audience makes a big difference for the networking and educational opportunity for any event. Please feel free to forward the invitation below to interested corporate and/or entrepreneurial executives in your network who may be interested in attending. Please note that the pre-registration deadline is Thursday at noon, and that there is NO on-site registration.