How to change the world without losing your mind
You want to change the world. At your disposal is a set of tools past generations could only dream of, giving you new ways to engage communities, reach under-served audiences, and bring new resources to bear. You’ve got new media and awareness strategies, triggered by the rise of social media, that let you leverage established brands and their messaging in mutually beneficial ways.
There’s just one problem: how do you do it all without burning out and going crazy in the process? After 20 years as a successful businesswoman, Lia Grimanis set her sights on a big problem: helping homeless women and children to rebuild their lives. In this talk, Lia will look at social venture programs, grass-roots efforts for poverty reduction, and how to stay sane while you change the world.
The Better Block Project
The Better Block project began in Dallas, Texas in 2010 to help rapidly transform a neighbourhood block with high vacancy rates and auto-oriented streets into a vibrant, walkable, district complete with pop-up businesses, bike lanes, outdoor cafe seating, landscaping, and murals.
The project broke several outdated city ordinances to show how many of the rules and regulations that existed were holding back the potential for a great place to exist. Since that time, the Better Block has become an international movement occurring as far as Australia to Iran.
In this session, Better Block founder Jason Roberts will give you an inside look at how innovation, entrepreneurship, and the urban core generate new possibilities for the society in which we live.
The future of digital is physical
In today’s always-on world, trillions of digital handshakes occur every day. We share information with colleagues, family, friends, followers, connections—and even complete strangers. Despite this, we still travel across the globe to sit around a table together and share a meal. We meet in person to establish a strong business bond. We sit patiently in a huge room, listening to industry luminaries we could just as easily watch on YouTube. And some of the world’s leading organizations have curtailed teleworking, telling their employees to come back to the office. Margaret Dawson reveals why the killer application of the digital era is … human contact.
Selling Intangibles—Wins and Sins
1. What the Hell does “Intangible” mean?
• Value/outcomes that must be imagined & inferred
• Active listening – summarize, clarify, condense
• Show interest and distill clarity
• Use incisive and vivid language to visualize processes and outcomes
• Make the intangible tangible
2. Building Scaleable Businesses that Sell Air?
• “When your work speaks for itself – don’t interrupt”
• Build relationships with candor and friendship
• CEOs are lonely, share their pain
• Be visible: publish, speak
• Whatever your produce or sell – YOU ARE IN THE SERVICE BUSINESS
3. Services Start-Ups Wins & Sins
• Low to zero capital required
• Secure demand always ahead of committing to supply
• Start with well-networked home-based stringers for rapid and agile deployment
• Demystify your methodology, no black boxes – invite mid-level client staff to
• Keep staff utilization over 80%
• Maintain margins over 40% with low fixed costs your training events
Passwords – You’re Doing it Wrong!
Turns out many startups and major companies are storing their passwords in a terrible terrible way – plaintext, SHA1, MD5, SHA1+salt, etc are common and BAD. DB leaks can and do happen. This fast talk gives an intuition about why these approaches are bad, why you’re company is a target for hackers, and what the right approach is (hint: bcrypt or similar). I give you a path to fixing all of your passwords overnight. Afterward, email your CTO!
Onavo: from grandma’s pick to Facebook’s pick
In the 2011 Startup Festival, Onavo was selected as grandma’s pick after showing off the company’s first product, an app that helps people who use data roaming save money. From that initial concept, the company evolved more products, discovered and built a business – and last October was acquired by Facebook. Guy Rosen, Onavo’s co-founder & CEO who today leads product management for the Internet.org initiative at Facebook, will share his notes from the startup journey. Join Guy and Startupfest’s Alistair Croll for a candid conversation on what it takes to go from an idea to a nine-figure deal.
Pivots are overrated: how small changes can unlock markets
In business, the grass is always greener elsewhere. It’s tempting to pivot, rather than leveraging your strengths and carefully tweaking the business model. In this talk, Laura Baldwin draws on her experience at Chronicle Books, O’Reilly Media, and elsewhere to show how even the tiniest shift in how a company operates can have far-reaching impacts and reveal entirely new products and markets.
Your slow app is killing you: what you don’t know about web performance can be fatal
We all instinctively know that faster web sites are better. But, there’s a lot that goes into having fast websites, including what « fast » means and how to measure it. In this session, we’ll discuss why you should care about the performance along with easy ways to get a feel for the performance of your site. We’ll also talk about all the things you’re probably doing wrong and how you can start fixing them. You don’t need to be techy to attend, but you’ll definitely leave with enough to be dangerous!
