A View from Abroad

Austin-Tatious: About To Meet The Best Friends I Never Knew I Had

My new best friends (see smiley faces on right) are waiting for me at our stylin' pad. I think they ate all the Salt Lick BBQ, though.  Will have to have them read the friendship contract again.

Attention European and Israeli Start-Ups: GuideWire Group's Innovate! Coming to a City Near You

Innovate! 2010 Europe has kicked off and Guidewire Group has started accepting applications from promising technology startups. On a rolling basis, Guidewire Group’s analysts – led by Chris Shipley – will review all applications for eligibility and will select the best ones as semifinalists.

Innovate! is a unique program dedicated to fostering relationships between local entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world and the global entrepreneurial ecosystem centered in Silicon Valley through in-person events and the annual Innovate! 100 list of top startups.

Innovate!’s mission is to identify and showcase the most promising early-stage startups across the globe, and to help dramatically accelerate those businesses by connecting them with world-class partners, investors and press.

Semifinalists will be invited to participate in one of the Innovate! 2010 Pitch Slams which will be held in over 10 cities throughout Europe and Israel in March 2010. Like the poetry slams by which they’re inspired, the Pitch Slams will provide entrepreneurs with valuable feedback from their peers and a panel of expert judges.

Using Guidewire Group’s proprietary assessment framework, each Innovate! 2010 startup will be given a G Score that reflects its overall viability, and offers a detailed evaluation of its business and product execution strategies, team and business model. Participants will also be invited to take part in the Innovate! 2010 Silicon Valley tour, a weeklong trade mission featuring intensive mentoring workshops, private introductions and meetings, and exclusive visits to some of Silicon Valley’s leading companies.

The top-ranked companies will be named to Guidewire Group’s Innovate! 100 list of the most promising early-stage technology, media and telecom startups. Selection as one of theInnovate! 100 confers extraordinary endorsement, validation and promotion. Contact GuideWire Group to be informed when applications and nominations open.

You’re also invited to learn more about Guidewire Group’s 2009 Innovate!Europe program, which helped to accelerate the global expansion of Europe’s top startups.

Design Your Own Car & Drive It Home: Local Motors

Huge shout out to @duffalex for this one, a design your own car company, Local Motors, based in Massachusetts.  Follow the founder @johnbrogers on Twitter.  

  

Tyranny of the Formerly Oppressed

My recent 15 hours of fame during the Eurotunnel debacle got me thinking about the nature of social media.

I am all about the democratization of the web.  Always on the David side of any David & Goliath equation, I am delighted to see the little guy finally having his day.  However, there is an inherent problem -- the tyranny of the formerly oppressed.

Say what you will, but the beauty of pokey traditional media was that there was a process in place, one that involved editing and fact checking, which meant that stories were presented without an editorial slant and containing verified facts.  Now the most ill-informed rumor can spread like wildfire and even be picked up by traditional media, thus giving it an air of credibility and the status of truth.  The citizen journalists -- us citizen journalists -- have no editor, no fact-checker, no filter.

I challenge us all to stick to these guidelines:

1. Be responsible:  fact-check.  
   
2. Be skeptical:  are these trusted sources? Don't just report random crap from sites or people that you don't know (much harder now with the new re-tweet functionality on Twitter).  Ask yourself: have you heard your information from more than one source? 
   
3. Be objective:  yes, yes, the nature of social media is subjective, but a subjective opinion can be presented in an objective manner.
   

Try to uphold journalistic integrity, even if you're not pulling down a journalist's pay.  Yes, Leila, I hear you laughing.

As Seen On Sky News: Ballou PR’s Advice On The Eurostar Communications Breakdown

Eurostar can come back from this, but they are going to have to spend valuable resources regaining trust and credibility.  There are lessons for all of us to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes:

1. Have a crisis plan in place; update it often
2. Train your people in customer service and empower them:  patronizing is not customer service
3. Communicate frequently and forthrightly — remember, if you don’t communicate, others will communicate for you, especially now.  This is the era of real-time communications.

Also, companies must learn to communicate.  It used to be that companies and brands delivered messages to us; now it’s a true conversation, but many of them still don’t want to take part.  How?

1. Get into the conversation now:   Facebook, LinkedIn, Viadeo, Xing, Twitter
2. Be forthright and human in your communication
3. Remember:  it’s a conversation, not a soliloquy.  Do not grandstand, take part.

We’ll expand on this in our Twitter feeds — follow us!

Dog Food

You know what, we have not been eating our own dog food like we should have, and we are 'fessing up here & now. Instead of paying attention to our blog, we've become enchanted with Twitter and have not been faithful bloggers like we should have.

It's hard to go back to more than 140 characters, but we're making a commitment to do so. And we're changing the nature of this blog: going forward, it's not a personal tome authored by Colette but a collection of thoughts, rants and advice from the whole Ballou PR team

Until we get fully back in the blogging saddle, follow us on Twitter (note, French and English content):

Colette Ballou (English)
Founder and CEO
@coletteballou

Jerome Richard (French)
Head of France
@jerome_richard

Vanessa McDonald (English)
Head of UK
@vanessamcd

Christina Aplington (English)
Head of Life Sciences Division
@whirliebird

Sarah Roy (both)
Head of Social Media
@shoukoujo

Paris Mini Seedcamp Finalists Selected

See you all the 24th & 25th!

Art and You
Brainient
CALCUL PLUS 
EtreProprio.com
GameTube
iDesktop.TV 
iFrame
jiwa 
KPIWEB
Kwaga
linkfluence
Musicovery 
MyVocal
SimplySim
Weem
Wozaik
Yoolinkpro

Mini Seedcamp Paris 2009 - Call for Applications

Team applications open on 12th January

The deadline is midnight, 9th February

Mini Seedcamp Paris aims to connect the region's start-up community with the wider European start-up scene.

We will be bringing together 20 of the region's best seed stage tech start-ups with experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and developers from both France and all over Europe to participate in a day of intense mentoring, panel discussions and presentations at the super-cool Microsoft Technology Center in Paris.

This year, Mini Seedcamp Paris is extending its search and inviting fresh and fantastic talent from beyond France to include Spain and the Benelux region. By doing so, we hope to unearth even more promising start-up teams that are itching to break through the surface and build a kick-ass business.

As a team in Mini Seedcamp Paris you will:

• Get access to a world-class network of advisors to help you with every aspect of your business
• Be recognised as one of the 20 best start-ups of the region
• Open a direct route to seed and venture capital

Team applications are open until February 9th at midnight. You can apply by going to the following link: http://apply.seedcamp.com/

Mike Butcher Day/The Old Married Couple

Mike Butcher of TechCrunch joined us on the 26th and 27th of November at Sofinnova to meet some French start ups -- we called it his "French Start-Up Speed Dating Day."  The list included:

• Sprice

• JeChange

• MotionSponsor

• Square Clock

• Linked Influence

• Believe

• Deezer

• Owlient

• Silentale

• Liligo

• BlueKiwi

• NavX

• Awdio

• NotreFamille.com

• TellMeWhere

Later than night, we had cocktail at my house, but those pictures are NSWF, as usual.

Mark And Colette Do a Mutual "What You Talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

We had the pleasure of hosting Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook last October, when came to Paris to introduce himself to one of Facebook’s fastest growing communities -- that would be France. It was a bit of a media circus, as we were followed by France 2’s “Envoyé Special” all day long to get footage for their investigative piece on Facebook (aired Dec. 4th).

Mark finished the day in the studios of Canal Plus where he was a special guest on one of France's most-watched shows, "Le Grand Journal -- and where he absolutely won the host and audience over.  Never underestimate the power of a engaging spokesperson, even if they don't speak the language.