Jean Ann Van Krevelen, MSW, has been appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). Van Krevelen currently serves in an advisory capacity to Lillian Shirley, Director of the Multnomah County Health Department, Lolenzo Poe, Senior Policy Advisory for Multnomah County Chair, Ted Wheeler, and the HIV/AIDS Directors’ Consortium.

“What a tremendous honor it is to be appointed to PACHA. I look forward to sitting at the table with such strong HIV/AIDS leadership and working hard to make a change.”

Van Krevelen, previously the Executive Director, left Cascade AIDS Project in June to dedicate more time to caring for her niece and nephew. The two children came into her care in January of this year. She is now the President of Escalation Business Consulting and serving as the Development Director for the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network.

This is an amazing opportunity for me to stay involved in a cause that is deeply meaningful, while still having time for my family.

Escalation Business Consulting

Escalation Business Consulting is a focused on pushing performance to the next level. Business coaching, strategic planning and leadership development are utilized to take businesses from good to great. EBC teaches clients to market their exceptional companies through social media; interweaving traditional and new media techniques.

PACHA Mission

The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) provides advice, information, and recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services regarding programs and policies intended to promote effective prevention of HIV disease, and to advance research on HIV disease and AIDS. The role of the Council is solely advisory. The Secretary provides the President with copies of all written reports provided to the Secretary by the Advisory Council.

Contact:
Jean Ann Van Krevelen
503 412 9837
jeanannvk@live.com
EdgyEntrepreneur.com
PortlandFoodie.com
Gardener to Farmer

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Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Social Media Consultant living in Portland, Oregon. You can reach her by E-mail at caseorganic at gmail.com or on Twitter @caseorganic.

Doug Fieldhouse of Vesta, ClearEdge Power, ID Experts, nLIGHT and BRING Recycling Are Selected as this Year’s Award Winners

Sept. 18, 2008, Portland, Ore. — The Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) announced the winners of the 2008 OEN Tom Holce Awards for Entrepreneurship during its 15^th annual awards ceremony on September 18, 2008. The ceremony, held at the Oregon Convention Center, honored finalists in four categories: Entrepreneurship Award for Individual Achievement; Development Stage Company of the year; Working capital Stage Company of the year; and the Growth Stage Company of the year.

Doug Fieldhouse of Vesta received the 2008 Entrepreneurship Award for Individual Achievement. “Doug exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit that we celebrate with these awards,” said Bob Sternberg, judging chair for this year’s awards. “He thinks big and looks for ways to make a tremendous impact, and he has the ability to execute on those ideas in ways that scale up effectively. His success with Vesta is just one example of his ability to change and jump into new opportunities and persistently grow the business over time.” In addition, he has a long history of mentoring and coaching young entrepreneurs.

In the Development category, ClearEdge Power of Portland, Oregon is this year’s winner. ClearEdge Power is a pioneer and provider of ultra-clean and efficient on-site energy generation systems. They have a substantial market opportunity and are professionally managed, well funded and are making substantial progress with product development and early adoption customers.

ID Experts of Beaverton is the winner in the Working Capital Category. ID Experts provides identity theft protection services for individuals, corporations and the public sector. They have successfully adapted to the changing needs of the market when required. Their painstaking and labor intensive process to restore customers’ identities will make it difficult for other companies to compete successfully against them in this marketplace. Due to these efforts, they have a 100 percent success rate restoring identities.

The winner of the Growth Category is nLIGHT Corporation of Vancouver, Washington.

nLIGHT develops and manufactures photonics modules for industrial, defense, and medical applications. The company had the vision to intelligently re-invent itself in the early stages of the collapse of the telecom bubble and the temerity to implement that new strategy under extremely difficult circumstances. It applied its skills and ingenuity in the marketplace to create, shepherd and grow a novel mentoring program (MAPS—Mentoring for Advanced Program for Students) that is having a real impact on local education and the future of this community.

BRING Recycling is this year’s winner of the Non-profit Award. BRING Recycling collects and resells low-cost used building materials as well as provides deconstruction and recycling services. Revenues generated fund conservation and education programs about the best way to reuse and recycle. BRING Recycling was selected for its organizational and entrepreneurial strengths overall, and how the organization was able to change course to meet changing demands in the community. BRING Recycling received a $5,000 award from the Meyer Memorial Trust at the Awards Ceremony.

“The recipients of this year’s awards have been successful because of their determination, independent thinking, and their ability to change direction and chart their own course.” said Linda Weston, executive director and president of OEN. “From clean power to identity protection, these Oregon and Southwest Washington companies are making innovative contributions that make a difference in our communities and beyond.”

The winners were chosen from 14 finalists by the OEN award judging committee, chaired by Bob Sternberg. Companies from throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington were nominated for the Awards, and were narrowed to the 14 finalists after hundreds of hours of due diligence, including site visits and face-to-face interviews. A comprehensive list of winners and finalists follows this release.

Individual Category

Doug Fieldhouse, Vesta - Winner
Ray King, AboutUs.org
Susan Sokol Blosser, Sokol Blosser

Working Capital Category

ID Experts- Winner
Beaverton, OR

Pop Art, Inc.
Portland, Oregon

PV Powered
Bend, Oregon

Growth Category

nLIGHT Corporation- Winner
Vancouver, WA

HemCon Medical Technologies, Inc.
Portland, Oregon

Timbercon
Lake Oswego, WA

Development Category

ClearEdge Power- Winner
Portland, Oregon

AboutUs, Inc.
Portland, Oregon

Jama Software
Portland, Oregon

Plas2Fuel Corporation
Chris Ulum
Kelso, WA

About OEN

Founded in 1991, the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to providing opportunities for Oregon entrepreneurs and improving the business climate for emerging, growth-oriented companies statewide. The organization has members throughout Oregon and southwest Washington. For more information about the OEN, visit its website at www.oen.org.

For more information, press only:
Jessica Foote
OnPR
503-802-4406
jessicaf@onpr.com

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Congratulations to all of the winners! Thanks for helping to put Oregon’s Entrepreneurs on the map!

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Social Media Consultant based in Portland, Oregon. You can contact her by E-mail or @caseorganic on Twitter.

A Colaboratory Visit

Today, Bram Pitoyo and I visited CoatesKokes to see what the Portland Colaboratory members were up to. The two Colaboratory teams were hard at work on their final PR and Marketing pitch for Sameunderneath. We watched them interview some CoatesKokes employees about what the Sameunderneath brand stood for. After about an hour of this, James Rice made a visit and let the team in on some strategic presentation advice.

James’ advice came at the right time — both teams have only seven days left before their final presentation to Sameunderneath. With only a week left in the program, he aimed to give them strategic advice on creating engaging and successful Marketing/PR plans.

James Rice is the Digital Brand Strategy Director at Ascentium, an agency specializing in interactive media. He has an intense track record. During his 15 years of agency experience, he’s only lost 5 clients. Compare this to baseball, golf, or the Olympics.

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James Rice Begins

James Rice: One of the things that most people forget, especially at your age, is that the concept of a team is very important. Never lose sight of that.

Collaborate

photo credit: Capra Royale

One thing we pride ourselves on is that everyone feels like they can work together to execute to that client’s expectations.

For instance (he pointed to Colab member Christine Vo, who was sitting to his left) if Christine and I were presenting to a client, a sort of conversation could go on between the two of us. It wouldn’t be like divisional, like assigning one person slides 3 and 5, or dividing up the work.

If you have the appropriate discussions in front of customers, that will speak volumes for people wanting to hire you.

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On the Errors of Big Agencies

There are some errors that most BDA (Big Dumb Agencies) make in presenting to potential clients. One of them is that they are used to pitching the team. CoatesKokes doesn’t do this.

It’s not about the people, or the history of whatever. Introduce your like this: “This is Joe, and he’s the account planner, and Sarah is the copywriter”. That way, the client sees what the agency is going to do, not what its people did in the past.

In case the agencies are listening, the idea of a BDA is not mine. George Parker coined the term on his blog AdScam.
He lived in Boise Idaho, and is a kind of blogger pundit. I highly suggest reading his work, as well as Marktd.com.

That all said — act as a team.

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Clients, Challenging Brands, and Organization

photo credit: gcoldironjr2003

1. Clients want to hire people who are enthusiastic about the business — who have taken the time to learn — who work together to challenge each other. At the same time, never be afraid to challenge the brand’s assumptions.

2. Be very organized in your thoughts — you have to be able to tell the story. Always pretend there’s a director over your shoulder, or that you’re presenting to your own camera.

Those are the two big tenants of presenting well.

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Passion, Slides, and Owning the Room

photo credit: jurvetson
Clients want to see that you’re passionate about the presentation.

But don’t put everything on the slides. If I see slides with more bullets on them, I’ll probably scream.

OWN the room when you step in. What’s on the glass or projected, will fill the gap.

What is most important is that you’re standing there with your team, and you’re passionate about what you say.

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Words Inspire Images

photo credit: Georgieporge

I was in my car the other day, and Posion’s Every Rose has its Thorn came on the radio. I listened for a moment and then switched over to CD. That Niel Young’s Cowgirl on the Sand. That was much better for some reason.

What made it better? It’s the same when it comes to presentations.

What we want to do in presentations is to get someone to think uniquely, or to present something that shows we’re unique. The phrase “Cowgirl on the Sand” shows something to our mind. It really conjures up an image. It is also unique, while the phrase “Every Rose has its Thorn” is overgrown; cliche.

Always try to come up with polarizing and intriguing things, and be very vocal; personable.

(At this point, James Rice began to wave his hands around a bunch).

Also use a bunch of hand motions.

(He pointed to the whiteboard behind him).

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This whiteboard is your best friend.

photo credit: Ben30

Once we went on a pitch and won HP as a client against a big competitor. We presented without laptops and Powerpoints and just brought in a whiteboard. That way, we could actually involve the clients in our presentation. They could watch it develop instead of sit there on the screen — this unmodified, ungrowing series of static images.

That’s one of the things I’d like to see in every presentation room. A whiteboard on which you could project a presentation on the lower part of it.

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Owning the Room During Electronic Malfunction

photo credit: Qfamily

Sometimes you come in, and there’s stuff that sometimes doesn’t work. White boards solve that. When possible, always have a backup. You shouldn’t need a Powerpoint to pitch an idea. It should be there in your head, and the head of your team.

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The COLAB Sameunderneath Presentation

James Rice: Lets talk about the Colaboratory presentation to Sameunderneath. How much time do you have?

Colab Member: 30 minutes for the pitch, and 15 for questions and answers.

Another Colab Member: No, it was just 30 minutes.

At this point, the team realized that there was a discrepancy of time-knowledge amongst them.

James Rice:
This brings up a good point. There should be that one point person who is in change of the entire thing. There always should be a pitch leader who is collecting all of the ideas. Everyone will take care of parts and pieces, but there needs to be part of a collector.

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On the Presentation of Self

photo credit: Steve & Jemma Copley

Never spend time on welcomes. I’m probably the only team that doesn’t do biographies. With Linkedin, Facebook, ect. out there, and there’s a good chance they know it is you.

As soon as you state, “I did this”, your design work becomes about your past.
If I could bestow any philosophy — it’s all about what you did — it’s about what you’re doing.

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On Thanking the Client

photo credit: carakatze

Don’t thank them like, “we’re happy to be here”

I’ve seen it done where people are so soft, like “I really appreciate the time”

Clients want actionable people that are ready to hit the ground, who are ready to kick some ass.

Say: “On the left there’s Chris Stein.

If you introduce her, it begins to be like a team.

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The Whiteboard

photo credit: mlinksva

On the screen, you can’t do the kinds of things you can do on the white board.

(He goes to the board behind him)

I just did this in a pitch the other day. I called it this area on the board, and made it the impact zone.

Instead of having an agenda — there are other certain things you can do, like you can take little sticky things and put down the thoughts on each other, and then start to arrange them into logical clusters.

—-
So then there’s these points of impact, and you can put them on the very first slide. For instance it can say the six things we’re gonig to do for you.
For samenunderneath you’re impact zone is going to be brand, exposure, orginality…ect.

What else do you want to do?

Do you want to create a new customer? Attract a new customer?

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Innovate in the Marketplace

photo credit: Lauras512

If you just put one or two words here and tell a story around them.

If I were pitching for Sameunderneath I’d probably be like “we’re here today because you’ve had a large impact to a very unique set of customers in what you’ve done for the last nine years…” We’ve looked at what kind of impact you’ve had in the marketplace.

If we were look at your brand expansion and how we can bring about greater exposure through your “market expansion plan” (adding sometimes its fun to put in phrases htat sound big)
today we’rll talk about how you can re-imagine your plan.

Lets look at brand experience, social retail. It is these thigns that will increase your exposure in the lines of your market plan.

Sameunderneath will take on this exposure and expand on it.

When I talk about a markting plan I have certain fears.

ROI would be on there.
(But I hate the word ROI — I’d prefer rather to use measurement…or culpability).

I’d have a statement and the impact points of ‘experience, authority, understanding.’

When I talk about experience a story is already starting to unfold.

Powerpoint presentations makes us be explicit.

I try to rip those bullets out and say them, not show them.

A slide can say “new ideas have the power to break boundaries set by others’ assumptions.”

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Branding a Presentation

photo credit: PinkMoose

You can also turn the presentation…not to your brand but to their brand.

Build the presentation like you work for them and put their brand on the bottom of the slides.

We do a lot of quite a few pitches that we do at Ascentium, and the strategy used depends on the type of pitch. If it is a type of social media strategy, then that comes on our deck (our brand and feel).

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Building from Scratch

photo credit: Richard Jones

We put all our presentation material on the network drive and it’s a mess.

Even though the presentation material is there, every time I build it from scratch.

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Finding Inspiration

photo credit: alicepopkorn

I have a delicious tag called inspiration…or “fucking rad”.

They’re where I go when I need inspiration.

Another thing I go to is Flickr.

If I’m stuck while making a presentation, I get what I want to say, and then create those keywords. And I build a slide desk with just thoe images.

And I begin to fill in those gaps “what do I want to say”.

Sometimes I put those ideas on notecards.

Question: What advice would you give to someone not as comfortable with presentng to a group?

James Rice: There are some amazing creatives that don’t want to pitch. They want to contribute to ideas.

I don’t pracice creating or programming anymore.

In the big picture, I’d probably, over time, find out where I’m there on it.
I have to ask the question of whether I want to pitch, or do I want to contribute a lot of really great ideas that are on the pitch?

In the case of Friday…get over it!

You’re gonna have great ideas…

You’re too young to be nervous.

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Images

photo credit: gutter

If your image is about expansion, find images of storefronts on Flickr that exist in other locations. Map the Sameunderneath logo onto them and see what happens. How does Sameunderneath fit in other ecosystems?

How could Sameunderneath fit into other cultures and other audiences.

As we looked at your plan of expansion…then do a map.

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The Awesomeness of Circles

photo credit: kyz

People love circles by the way

And if you draw circles and shit…

(He shows the group a slide filled with various objects).

Then clients will love it. They have the capability to show growth and change.

If you can draw what you’re trying to say people are going to love it. You’ll be so successful.

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Macrovisualizing

photo credit: audreyjm529

(Points to the board — where many ideas are listed).Man…this could be a slide of 26 bullets.

James RiceDon’t increase the number of slides to decrease the nubmer of bullets.

What I’d do is macrovisualize what I’m trying to visualize.

(Points to the jars of M&M’s on the table… (see, M&M’s are not triangular or square. They’re circular).

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A Sample Introduction

photo credit: eyeliam

James Rice began by drawing a vertical line on down the white board. One one side of it, he drew Sameunderneath.

James Rice: Here’s Sameunderneath .. it’s made a great impact on 18-24 year olds.

Then James started circling the logo, adding concentric rings around it that were larger and larger as they progressed. He led them to cross over to the right side of the vertical line.

James Rice: And here’s where we need to take it. This is why circles are powerful — they show the progression of time.

Where we need to take it is the 30-40 year olds…and increase the core audience. Then, as time progresses, the 30-40 year olds need to be come the main audience.

Try to draw you what you’re going to say.

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Learning from Failure

photo credit: zentolos

Instead of saying here’s what succeeded, I’d like to tell you about something that failed.

It’s fun to give you advice based on a thing that didn’t work .. because it is easier to see know what went wrong.

I’ll tell you what went wrong this time.

We hadn’t met the client before, and we were up, literally, for 61 hours.
Thus, we had no context, and with only three days to prepare, it was pretty much impossible.

We should’ve been more prepared for it; I should’ve told them no.

But we all realized we liked the three day thing.
Because when you have three weeks, you smash all of your ideas against the wall. You force yourself over them too much, until they become less of what they were before.

Like my writing professor in college said — write it. And then you’rll rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it. But just write it.

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On Taking Breaks

photo credit: dennis and aimee jonez

Don’t stay continuously working on something. You need to give your brain a break.

More importantly, focus it completely for a while, and then step back.

(He examined the presentation on his laptop).

I also used the colors and blue…maybe that was the problem.
I also didn’t use rounded corners — against my best intentions.

I’ll give you a secret — brand voice is what happens when you come in with
Your goal of the presentation is to distill it down into memorabale, topical, organized pitches.

You should have over 15 slides, ideally. And talk to your slides — they’re meant to work for you. They’re also touchpoints.

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On Pitching

photo credit: akeg

“When will you be pitching?” He asked the Colab Members. “Will you be practicing?”

It was stated that team Lattice would be practicing at Studio Bard on Wednesday.

James Rice: Does everyone have soem Sameundernath clothing?

I might do that if I were pichng htem as a client. It’s more gimmicky — but it shows that you’re all invested in the brand.

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Ten Things You Can Really Remember

photo credit: seanmcgrath

Look over your documents and come up with 10 great things that you really remember.

Make sure those ten things are what is remembered when you walk out of that room.

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Create a Visual Analysis

photo credit: playerx

Come up with your own type of visual analysis.

Everything dyou do should be expressed visually.

(James went again to the whiteboard and drew circles).

James Rice: Here’s our biggest MINDSHARE competitor.

Here are some very unique ways for you to expand your customers…and increase their mindshare.

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The Impact Zone

photo credit: Ana Filipa Machado

Identify the expertise in the creative ideas… identify zones within your plan where you now have it down cold.

Know it more than what it takes to get into that plan. Consider:

• Brand
• Exposure
• Originality
• Innovation
• Expansion
• ROI

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Conclusions

It was great to hear what James Rice had to say about the creative industry. As an Anthropologist, it was an interesting injection into a world of competing teams, creative ideas, and intense work methods. I look forward to seeing the future ideas that come out of the mind of James Rice and the Colaboratory members.

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Resources

photo credit: markhillary

Check out the blog of James Rice
And you can follow his Delicious Links.
Or you can follow James Rice on Twitter.

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Thanks for Reading Hazelnut Tech Talk!

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