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Why Social Business Leaders Are Shattering the Traditional Workplace

I recently had the luxury of speaking with Maria Huntalas about her latest eBook, “25 Inspiring Global Social Business Leaders, Why They Are Shattering the Traditional Workplace as We Know It.” The eBook is based on a pilot program that IBM ran with The Economist Intelligence Unit to identify 25 of the most inspiring global social business leaders in the following categories: visionaries, culture shapers, strategic thinkers, storytellers and entrepreneurs. While many of the outcomes from the project were unexpected, the engagement results were nothing short of profound. With over 24 million impressions captured and 1,500 unique viewers, the project was nominated for an Ad Age BtoB Award. But why the massive results? Both IBM and The EIU really understood the value of teaming up and collaborating, especially when it came to engaging the 25 inspiring leaders. It’s a shift in thinking that says the dominant voice isn’t necessarily held by one individual, but rather by entire communities. “This whole sharing of stories and storytelling in a community environment powered and fueled by social networks and technologies is really now the norm,” says Huntalas. “When you think about the huge implications that has on brand advocacy, that’s really why business leaders should care.” For example, Ben & Jerry’s and Frito-Lay both turned to their communities for help in identifying the next big thing — the next big innovative idea or product — thereby employing a tactic that was similar to a crowd-sourcing strategy. “I think that’s why business leaders really need to pay attention, because all of a sudden ideas are not coming from inside the four walls of their companies — they are coming from these communities,” says Huntalas. “The communities are exhibiting a much greater influence over their brands.” It’s about making the customer the “hero” of the story through authentic engagement. In order to do that, you really do have to better understand them. In Huntalas’ book, she explains that this is where technology, analytics and cognitive computing help. “My colleague, Simon Mainwaring, CEO of We First Branding and founder of the We First Leadership Summit – where we interviewed many thought leaders and speakers who are the subjects of the videos we featured in the eBook – always says: ‘Be the celebrant, not the celebrity,’” says Huntalas. She suggests that if businesses start putting people at the center of the conversation, they could in fact inspire greater levels of innovation and collaboration, which will benefit everyone just from the sharing of information. 

[realmosworld]

View from the #google office San Francisco. #bitstars #siliconValley #io14 #ausblick #noFilter (hier: Google San Francisco)

[cnet]

A day in the life of the SF Bay Area’s tech wonderland — in photos.

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Cool spaces! 

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Pinterest Adding a Buy Option? For the full story, head to n3rdabl3.co.uk

[getanews]

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Tech News There perhaps isn’t anything that a Google Search cannot find, but all of us who have only been Googling for information and knowledge may soon be Appleing for them.The Daily Mail, in a...

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Fitbit’s Lastest Wearable is Causing Irritation For the full story, head to n3rdabl3.co.uk

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Silicon Valley Fosters Innovation For Social Good

I just recently re-watched a video published by The Tech Awards, a signature program held by The Tech Museum of San Jose. For those who aren't too familiar, The Tech Awards is an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world, which has been around for a little over a decade. Specifically, it identifies those men and women who are applying technology to benefit humanity through great social initiatives. Each year they award laureates, which are individuals, non-profit organizations, and for-profit companies who are innovating and using tech to better the world around them. Additionally, they award a single global humanitarian whose philanthropic efforts are helping to address humanity’s greatest challenges. This year’s recipient was media mogul Ted Turner, who along with his generous $1B gift to the UN Foundation, has focused his time and energy into bettering the world through seemingly endless philanthropy. Turner, who is among the wealthiest people in the world, is also one of the most generous in giving. He’s well known, beyond his career, for donating money to organizations fighting disease, poverty, climate change, and other pressing issues around the world. Ted has pioneered not only the media industry but also paved a new wave of giving to those in need, much like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. This left me wondering, who will be the next entrepreneur to help benefit humanity? Will it come from our own backyard of Silicon Valley, the global hub of innovation, or will it take more than one person? Facebook CEO, Mr. Zuckerberg, has definitely made a dent in Silicon Valley with his $120 Million donation to Bay area schools, which will help educational programs tremendously. But who is the next contributor to fighting disease, poverty, and education in developing countries? In the video, Turner mentions how he learned his philanthropic ways from his father, who gave back to those in need every chance he had. When asked why he also gave so generously, and on such magnitude, he said, “The more I gave, the better I felt.” Giving back to those in need, and the feeling of gratification makes it worthwhile in and of itself. So why are people so hesitant to donate money, especially when it’s going to organizations attempting to make the world a better place. Is it because they can’t see where their money is being used? Or is it because they are unable to see the people they are benefiting? Whatever the case may be, surely it’s time to close that gap between the poorest countries in the world and Silicon Valley, where we are on the cutting edge of innovation & technology.

It shouldn't take an individual to make a difference in this world. Instead, it should be a collection of people, with passion, dedication, & most importantly the education to understand the need for change. If there is a cause you strongly support and believe in, take some initiative to find out how you can help. Everyone would be thrilled if millionaires supported our favorite causes, but the chances of that are slim to none. We should start today, by educating our youth for the future of humanity so they could begin innovating technology to solve today's pressing issues from cancer to HIV/ AIDS. I would love to see an increase in educational programs dedicated to teaching young innovators and entrepreneurs how to bring their ideas to fruition. The Tech Awards have been pioneers in challenging youth by providing the tools and resources they need from workshops to mentoring so that one day they could change the world. They have proven that there should be more accessible tech and innovative programs, because the future of humanity depends on the innovators of tomorrow. Silicon Valley has been the leader for the latest tech, & it also fosters the future of innovation, especially for social good.

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#WomenInTech

On the 26th of March, I had the opportunity to attend an amazing panel called, Women In Tech, which was held by TechInMotion - Silicon Valley. The event made for perfect timing as March was recently dubbed Women's History Month and what better way to celebrate it discussing women in tech especially here in Silicon Valley. This event rallied over 300 very diverse attendees and held the event at The Art Institute of California - Sunnyvale. This amazing venue made me feel very welcomed by preparing an array of appetizers from their culinary students (which were amazing). After settling in we were introduced to the panel by Perri Blake Gorman, CEO of Archively, who would weave the conversations throughout the night from panelist to questions from the crowd. As if the the number of attendees weren't impressive enough, the panel would include some of the brightest women in the tech space of today. This panel included: Kimber Lockhart, Director of Engineering at Box, Sophia Perl, Director of Product Management for Mobile Ads at Yahoo!, Lisa Falzone, CEO and co-founder of Revel Systems, Marissa Louie, Principal Designer at Yahoo!, and Ewa Ding, Director of UX. 

Perri started the discussion by asking the panel about their early experiences in business from the good, bad, and ugly, which is not to be confused with the Clint Eastwood classic. It was interesting how different these women's experiences were as they came from all different areas of business. Some women came from the client side, and some from the entrepreneurship side, both sharing their own unique stories. One of the first to share their experiences was Kimber, who started her own company very young. "I caught the entrepreneurship bug while in college", said Lockhart. Catching this bug meant co-founding Increo, a web-based service that allows users to share and review documents in a secure space which was acquired by Box in 2009. This is an amazing accomplishment as Box, one of the leaders in scalable content-sharing just filed for a $250M IPO. Some early business experiences for the other panelist were much different however. Both Lisa and Marissa found out first hand how difficult it was breaking into the tech space as bright women. Lisa recalls her first experience in the tech space,  "I didn't realize there was sexism until I entered the business world." Along the same lines as a women designer in tech, Marissa didn't foresee the obstacles she'd face either, "I never thought I was going to face challenges growing up." She even recalled being asked out while on a business meeting, "I've been asked on dates when trying to have meetings with a VC which is totally disrespectful." These adversities however didn't slow down these women one bit as Lisa would become CEO a co-founder of Revel, and Marissa as a Principal Designer at Yahoo. 

Kimber remembers being one of the few women in her companies and using that to her advantage starting out her career. "I also stuck out, like a sore thumb, it's helps to step out and be unique", said Kimber. This helped set her apart from of the crowd which she loved. In the same conversation on women empowerment, Lisa agreed that in order for women to really get their name out there and be seen in the tech space, women need to help out other women. "If we want more women with power, they need to help out other women", Lisa stated. In such a competitive market, women should focus more on helping other women get into the space, for the sake of gender equality in the workplace. This is not to be mistaken for a "girls club" or anti-males in tech movement, but instead allowing women equal opportunities to prove themselves in the tech industry that currently lacks women.  

Gender diversity should be at the core of every business strategy, giving organizations well-rounded teams to help solve any creative problem. In a recent article by Fast Company, gender diversity starts with the people. "Change must come from both individuals and institutions. While many initiatives have focused on providing women the skills to more successfully navigate organizational environments, organizations must also hold themselves accountable to prioritize the support and development of a more diverse workforce." Not to mention that only 1.3% of percent of founders at privately held, venture-backed companies are women, as stated by a Dow Jones article. This low percentage shows that women in the startup community should work together and make gender equality a priority for the future of women in the tech space. Should parents start encouraging their daughters to go into the tech space or should we leave it up to the school systems to promote women in the tech space? These are the conversations we should start having with friends, family, and co-workers. The workplace has changed drastically from boomers to the current millennials coming out of school and its time for change, and change it for good. Women in tech are disrupting the workplace and this gender equality is way overdue. 

As one of the few males in attendance, I really got a better understanding of the challenges these women faced getting their foot in the door. It has opened my eyes to #womenintech and I strongly stand behind this movement, the future of women in  tech, and for gender equality in the workplace. Special thanks to all the panelist for sharing your stories, and to Tech In Motion for hosting the event.

  PS: After the event I got to chat with with Marissa Louie who was super nice and inspiring! Thanks for taking the time to chat and also thanks for the #selfie =) 

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Your Brand: From the Tin Man to the Lion with a Heart

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Brand Innovators Consumer Engagement Summit at Bloomberg West in San Francisco.  The stage was filled with Silicon Valley’s finest marketers from Adobe, Clorox, Lyft, Monster Products, Salesforce, and Tapsense.  I sat there with iPhone in one hand and iPad in the other, with a charger ready to go should either one die in the middle of an important tweet.  The room was humming with thoughts of how brands can best connect with consumers.  The audience was captivated by the speakers’ views in leveraging user-generated content, methods of developing a strong content strategy to connect with consumers- and then I realized something.  Each person was connecting to the thoughts being shared and with other audience members because of their same-shared interest and compelling need to learn more. We were connecting the same way we want our customers to connect with our own brands.

From this, a trend of key words started to buzz around the room; emotions, connecting, relationships, love, listening, and content strategy.  The words were making everyone hum the same tune and it was summed up and packaged neatly with a nice smack in the face. (If you can believe a smack is nice). This slide was simple, precise, and deafened the minds of those that are bombarded with a million and one thoughts, like myself.  This slide began a flurry of tweets and retweets and mentions, to the point where my Hootsuite feed couldn’t even keep up! The image of the slide and all the tweets took over the Mutual Mind command center that was projected on the adjacent screen. Intrigued?  Curious, what was it?

“There is no more B2B or B2C.  It’s H2H: Human-to-Human. #H2H ” – Bryan Kramer, CEO, PureMatter

(“Riddle me that”, as the Joker would say.)  I just spent the whole morning listening to the power of content and how that content needs to emotionally connect with the consumer. And allowing your consumer to help drive where your innovation and content goes by listening and feeding them with what they need and want. Leveraging new tools to create a solid strategy that will help cultivate brand love and creating emotional moments and generating brand advocates of employees and customers.  And the answer behind it all was right there, staring me in the face: H2H.

I began to wonder about the implications of this new concept.  Could you boil down the complex network of brands and consumers to something as simple as a personal relationship? I believe a solid foundation for any relationship consists of HOTFACE- Honesty, Openness, Trust, Consistency, Acceptance, Flexibility, and Energy.  If you lack in one then you won’t have the stability needed to be successful.  (I swear this isn’t a Dr. Phil moment.)  Now before I conclude on what this notion of H2H means to me, there is one other important piece of the equation to define.

How do you bring humanity to a product that is traditionally seen as a logo without a heart? I mean, you can’t just put on your Mr. Rogers sweater and expect that everyone wants to be your neighbor because you believe that you have HOTFACE down. Gone are the days where you stand up on a soapbox with a megaphone in hand.  The ‘Mad Men’ advertising tactics have evolved as equally how consumers use tech.  It’s not about the brand creating a need for a product, but listening to the customer and creating what they truly want or desire. “You must know your audience in order to successfully engage them” via @PinsightMedia+  

Bear in mind here, I’m not saying that every consumer’s word is gold.  If that were the case, then this world would be taken over by electronic snuggies and homemade beer Twinkie kits made by a Jetson-like robot that breaks down every time you add water.  How do you tune out the static and find those golden nuggets of useful information that can help take your brand to that emotional level with the consumer?

It comes down to leveraging the evolution of tech, the web, and essentially, using the same tools consumers use to connect to the vast amount of content and information available to them via one finger and a 4”x2” mobile device. You can’t take ownership of the megaphone. It has switched from the brand to the user and it has moved from online surveys and focus groups to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, etc. 

To sum it all up: Listening is an art that builds trust and encourages openness on both sides. Using new tools to identify those key messages and translating them is a skill that requires flexibility.  Building that into meaningful content that captivates your audience is a talent, which requires accepting the good, the bad and being honest with yourself. Then allowing that positive energy to transpire through your brand. Finally, to build brand affinity by making an emotional connection through consistency is the masterpiece.  Human-to-Human is a combination of all these things that allows us to transcend the brand, potentially transforming from an emotionless bot to having a benevolent presence that fosters brand love both internally and externally. 

[svtechwire-blog-blog]

Time to Change: Culture and Brand Disruption Leading to Innovation - Xerox PARC Forum

On January 16th 2014, I had the opportunity to attend a forum at Parc, a Xerox company, titled “Time to Change – Culture and Brand Disruption Leading to Innovation.” The research and development company based out of Palo Alto, CA welcomed Todd Wilms (@toddmwilms), Head of Social Business Strategy at SAP to host the forum. At his side was an outstanding panel that would soon add great conversation to the forum surrounding innovation and how it is achieved through disruption. This panel included Susan Etlinger (@setlinger), industry analyst at Altimeter Group, Bryan Kramer (@bryankramer), President and CEO of PureMatter, and lastly Michela Stribling (@mstribling), social business program director for IBM. This well-balanced mix of professionals gave everyone in attendance an even perspective on what disruption and innovation means to them. I have chosen the following three topics from the forum to write in this months post for SVTW.

A question that caught the crowd’s attention was, do small companies innovate easier and more nimble than larger companies? With Silicon Valley home to many tech companies both small and large, Michela Stribling of IBM politely disagreed that innovation with larger sized companies is also obtainable given IBM’s most recent announcement of IBM Watson. “Innovation comes from everywhere. It would be wrong to say it only comes from large organizations,” Stribling stated. Susan Etlinger followed shortly after and brought up a valid point stating, “Culture plays a huge role, and I’ve seen companies of 5 people that have a hard time getting idea out the door, and then companies of 50,000 who can do it on schedule.” This goes to show that every company regardless of size has their own mix that works best for them. The challenge I see for companies is to identify that perfect mix of defining the company culture, and having transparency from top to bottom when it comes to sharing ideas, and collaborating, which will ultimately lead to innovation.

Another theme that raised eyebrows was that innovation isn’t always pretty at first. Susan Etlinger stated, “innovation isn’t really that innovative unless it is disruptive. It needs to change the way we do things.” A prime example of this was Netflix when the company decided to segment the business from streaming, to DVD by mail, which resulted in a backlash and a declining stock price to go with it. This story lead to Netflix actually learning something about themselves, but more importantly they learned about their customers as well. I believe that in order for us to make room for improvements, we need to take big risk and “learn from our mistakes.” We have all heard that phrase before, but companies need to take chances, listen and learn from their consumers, and innovate better products and features that are tailored to them. That is the biggest obstacle successful business will ever have to overcome.

I spoke shortly with Bryan Kramer, CEO and President of PureMatter, after the event and got some of his thoughts around innovation and the direction it is headed in the near future. “The Internet of Things” is starting to manifest in products that solve problems we didn’t even know we had. Allowing technology access to ALL facets of our lives makes things more intuitive and easy. Things like connecting your washing machine to your mobile device to remotely start the next load, or compiling all your credit cards into one single smart credit card like Coin.

In conclusion, the forum brought up many topics that derive around innovation and culture change for companies to be successful. Regardless of the company size innovation comes from everywhere, but it’s the culture of that company that ultimately drives the speed at which it is created. Also, it’s important to learn from your business strategy mistakes and adapt much like Netflix did years ago. The future of innovation isn’t promised to look pretty if your company doesn’t find that culture and conversation mix that works best for them. This comes from taking chances, actively listening, and learning from your errors. Ultimately, this will create a culture that allows for seamless collaboration, and continuous innovation of products and services for your consumers. I want to give a special thank you to all the panelists for taking the time to share their professional advice, and encouraging a creative space for thought provoking conversation.  Full Video Recap: http://youtu.be/ISxfyFhiqIg 

To read other great recaps of the forum, please visit both Michelle Killebrew's (@shellkillebrew) and Susan Etlinger's articles here. Via: @JoeyLopez0

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C2SV: Silicon Valley speaks up and inspires

If there’s anything Silicon Valley does well, it’s providing the fertile ground for some of the brightest and brilliant minds to invent new ways to change the word. At the recent C2SV: Create. Converge. Silicon Valley conference - San Jose’s answer to the famed SXSW – this proved to be true in spades.

  Deemed “Year Zero” by conference founder Dan Pulcrano (of Metro Newspapers), he and a bootstrap team of local talent pulled together a power-packed programming schedule featuring back-to-back tech giants, entrepreneurs, authors, Venture Capitalists and, quite literally, rocket scientists.

  After sitting through 3-days of the event, three themes emerged from the collective content:

Technology is disrupting everything

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, co-authors of “The Age of Context” discussed how technology has disrupted industries in ways we could have never predicted; In wearables like Nike Fuelband or Fitbit; Sensors everywhere and in everything including self-driving cars; and location intelligence, and its ability to put you into physical context in the environment around you. Cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, had disrupted traditional currency models and will change the way the world will transact. Augmented reality is now so advanced that using Metaglasses, you can interact with the real and virtual worlds simultaneously without ever knowing the difference between the two.  Online privacy has evolved into now a single online “Digital ID” that uses your unique signature to authenticate anything without risk. Technology is even disrupting politics and how campaigns are conducted today, with the emergence of social media reaching new voters where traditional channels had failed.

Technology will never replace humans In a world addicted to bigger, better, faster, stronger, it was clear during the event that no technology could ever replace the nuance and context of human thinking. Storytelling. “Digital Hollywood” panelists Evette Vargas and Bradley Lautenbach explained that no matter the delivery system, it’s the core story that matters, not the other way around. "You always need to go back to the hook of the story then figure out how to integrate it into many platforms,” said Vargas. “Human beings need to think through the big ideas in the world,” said Steve Wozniak. Even when it comes to raising venture capital, the humans behind the product matter more. “An early lesson to raise VC funding I learned is to put your team as slide #1 in your pitch,” Elisa C, founder of the Blogher conference. “People invest in people, not companies.”

Social will power the future of business Technology and business go hand in hand and where it’s headed next hinges on social collaboration. In a lively panel with Todd Wilms, Head of Social Business Strategy for SAP, Bryan Kramer, president/CEO of PureMatter and Kare Anderson, Emmy-award winning journalist warned people that if you’re not shattering silos and allowing social collaboration in your business, you’re positioned for failure. “The customer co-owns the brand experience today, and that is uncomfortable for brands," said Wilms. “Social business has to have people, technology and processes in place,” said Kramer. “We have to listen digitally and use this to make the product better.” And it’s not just large corporations that social affects. XXX, founder of NextSpace, a next generation collaborative workspace for entrepreneurs, has proven that in order to be successful today, you must be able to collaborate, communicate and interact with others. “You can work at home, but you can’t work in isolation.” Brian Solis discussed his book – literally title “WTF? What’s the Future of Business” and inspired the audience before even saying a word with his t-shirt emblazoned with “Stop bitching and start a revolution already!” Robert Scoble took a more relaxed approach: “I don't see the future, I just have great friends."

  Sitting in the second row, it was not lost on me that something magical and special was happening before me on the stage. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Atari founder – and Steve Jobs first and only boss – Nolan Bushnell shared a stage for the first time since the early 1980s, and did not disappoint. Walking into a standing ovation, they wittily bantered and reminisced about the early days of Apple and the Valley. And despite being titans of technology, it was refreshing to hear them both underscore the importance of humanity amidst it all. “Brute force doesn't solve anything; it's the methods that come from the human brain that can solve them,” Steve Wozniak emphatically explained. Nolan Bushnell retorted by acknowledging this is true, but that he was “disappointed that things weren’t farther ahead then they are.” He joked that he only had a short time left on this earth and he wanted to see technology advance much more quickly and encouraged the audience to “get off your asses and do something about it already!”

  Although the room was only peppered with a few hundred people, the conference trended number one on Twitter in the Bay Area, flooding the socialsphere with 140 character recounts about what we were hearing.  You can track the hashtags #C2SV and #C2SVTech to read them all, but to close, a quote that summed up the conference best: “This event is genuine, available and authentic – it reminds us of the early days of TED before it got big – that’s the spirit here at Year Zero of C2SV.”

  Cheers to the spirit. Until next year, I can’t wait to see what happens next. 

[svtechwire-blog-blog]

Blogwell Bay Area 2013: Where Big Brands Converged in Silicon Valley to Talk Social

As you would expect here in Silicon Valley, technology rules – even when it came to the big global brands attending and presenting at the recent Blogwell Bay Area event. Held at the Santa Clara Convention Center (dominated behind by the almost completed new 49ers stadium) and hosted by SocialMedia.org, Blogwell delivered some of the best, insightful “TED” type presentations about how big brands use social media to a packed house.

  Citrix, Intel and Xerox represented the tech crowd at the event. And although there were also huge consumer brands presenting as well – Coca Cola, HSN (Home Shopping Network) and Whole Foods, to name a few – it was interesting to hear just how similar the social challenges and processes were between B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer). Unique to tech, however, was the seemingly more open attitude to “failure”. Perhaps Silicon Valley, and its innovative technology roots, have taught these brands that when things don’t go your way, it’s an opportunity to learn, change and grow to something even better.

   Jen Lashua, VP at Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence (@runningjen), honed in on this concept as she walked us through Intel’s brand philosophy; “Celebrate Smart.” She said, “Luckily, being a geek is hip again. Being smart is cool.” Knowing this, combined with a deep understanding about Intel’s curious, yet limited attention span audience, has them producing over 300 pieces of targeted content each month.

  “Always go for the share,” says Lashua. How do they gauge what’s sharable? Intel’s fans will tell you: “Make me smarter while you entertain me.”  A great example Intel showed to support the importance of creativity to get people talking was instead of announcing a traditional countdown to their next product launch in hours, they converted it to nanoseconds. This directly related to their audience’s “inner geekiness” and got a lot of people trying to convert the time back to hours, which fueled great word of mouth online.

  Other key sound bytes from the crowd at Blogwell:

Jay Bartlett, Xerox: “Think of yourselves as journalists. Tap into the people inside your company to get to the stories [to share in your social channels].”

Andy Sernovitz, CEO/Founder, SocialMedia.org: “Trust is the only way social media works. The difference between honesty and sleazery is disclosure.

Natania Anderson, Whole Foods (@natanyap): “Culture eats strategy for lunch.”

  Thanks to the folks at Blogwell for allowing SV Tech Wire to cover the event (Kurt Vanderah @kurtvan and Andy Sernovitz @sernovitz, this means you.)

  So, key takeaways? Social media as a technology and active medium for quick creative distribution – is here to stay, but with it breeds an ecosystem of communication, governance, and operational challenges. With tech giants such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram all located here in Silicon Valley, we can only hope that they continue to find new ways to innovate and be creative – through failure, or whatever other means possible.

[svtechwire-blog-blog]

Creativity and Technology: Converge. Collide. Combust.

Creativity and technology individually, have both been heralded as cutting-edge, more so it seems in the past 25 years than ever before in history. Being in Silicon Valley, we witness each firsthand, every day, more quickly and intensely than anywhere else on the globe. Apple. Google. Facebook. LinkedIn. Pinterest. Yahoo. eBay. Cisco. IDEO. (and on, and on…) All headquartered here in Silicon Valley.

Why? Some would say the concentration of hyper-intellects, engineers, inventors and educators who reside in the 70-mile span from San Jose to Marin. According to Wikipedia, Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of high-tech workers of any metropolitan area – 285.9 out of every 1,000 private-sector workers – that’s almost 1/3 of the population garneting their livelihood from the tech industry. This means that, say, you’re sitting on a full plane in a middle seat at SJC. Look to the person on your left. Then your right. At least one of them works in the tech industry… and so does one in every row in the plane you’re sitting in. You can imagine that proximity alone in Silicon Valley fosters a different set of conversations than anywhere else in the world.

Simply put, creativity out here drives everything. As defined by Webster, “creativity” is the “ability to create.” Every human on this planet has this inherent ability, and there’s no special creativity store at Stanford Mall. But the SVer’s living here seem to find it, cultivate it and exude it every day in their creations.

At SV TechWire, we hope to showcase prime examples of creativity and technology converging, colliding and hopefully, combusting together. We’ll be at events both in person and virtually, trolling the internet and social and just plain keeping our ears open in our day-to-day lives to give you a front row seat to the creative and technology scenes here in Silicon Valley.

We welcome your suggestions. 

[svtechwire-blog-blog]

Looking at the convergence of creative and technology in Silicon Valley