Last night I had the pleasure of dining with 18 fascinating technologists and entrepreneurs, reminding me again of the depth and diversity of the talent pool in Los Angeles and the emergence of our region as a technology center for the world. We were gathered for a “vision-casting” session for MOTM (Meeting of the Minds), a salon made popular over the past two years by its unique format and the ability of its thoughtful founders, Kurt Daradics and Baron Miller, to lead intimate discussions of well-curated groups of individuals gathered around important industry issues of the day.

The hallmarks of MOTM networking events are their spontaneity, unscripted introductions by the hosts of each of the 40 or so invited guests and a speakers whose role is equal parts teacher and moderator — all buttressed by networking made richer by the contextual relevance of the participants.

Last night was different. Gathered around a large dinner table, our commonality was not around an industry sector, but rather our desire to help the founders chart a course for the group in light of two key developments: 1) MOTM is expanding beyond Westlake Village to include events  in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and Orange County; and 2) MOTM is partnering with Ben Kuo’s socalTECH.com, bringing a live events component to the venture-focused newsletter and introducing the local financial community to MOTM’s mostly technology and entrepreneurial set.

As often is the case at MOTM, I was impressed by each of the guests in their own right — CIOs, gamers, musicians, programmers, content developers, bloggers, an executive coach, a television personality – and the potential not just of those assembled, but what’s possible if the power of all MOTM’s participants were to be harnessed, either for commerce or for good.

About halfway through introductions, and as an offshoot of a Marvel/Disney discussion, Kurt began asking each person to state their “Superhero power,” obviously intending to call attention to something special about each of his guests. While some were more comfortable joking about fictional powers like X-ray vision and the ability to breathe under water, more thoughtful answers included “guitar shredder” and “social chameleon.”  

Although not called upon to answer this question, my faux answer would have been the transformative Wonder Twins powers my sister and have enjoyed joking about since childhood. My more serious answer would have been “master networker,” for the enjoyment I receive from meeting new people and my desire to connect those who haven’t met yet in order to help each other advance their own agendas.

So, what’s your Superhero Power?

Few things possess more Power than a Thought.
Because a Thought has the potential
to become something significant.
To solve something meaningful.
And to inspire us to achieve great things.

What makes a Thought so powerful is that it can be created by anybody.
At anytime.
From anywhere.

That’s why thinking should be encouraged
and nurtured in all its forms.
No matter how small.
Or how impossibly grand. 

Because wherever Thinking happens,
Big Ideas follow.
Minds become enlightened.
Knowledge grows.
And people discover new ways to unlock their Potential.

So start Thinking

View this inspiring spot for Qatar Foundation.

Returning to LA to co-host the Digital Family Summit ended an abbreviated Advertising Week on a high note. It was an honor to interview Gerry Philpott of E-Poll and Karen North from USC, who graciously helped us implement the first-ever Managing Online Communities Survey. It was also fun meeting our speakers Mike Jones and Peter Hirschberg, and getting to introduce Jason Calacanis who interviewed them during a live broadcast of his show “This Week In Startups.” 

The best part of the evening was seeing old friends, including Brian McCarthy, Craig Moody, Liz Heller, Jim Jonassen, Joey Tamer, Darren Chuckry, Tony Greenberg, Mark Jeffrey, Tracy Bagatelle, Olivier Chaine and the list goes on. I was also pleased with the high caliber of attendees — at one point I found myself having just had six conversations in a row with CEOs.  

Here are some photos, blog posts and tweets if you’re interested in seeing what others are saying about the event. Also, please visit our sponsors, without whom great events like this would not be possible. Thanks too to all who attended and helped us promote the event.

When the crowed of 250 or so thinned out around 11 p.m., I enjoyed a yummy sushi roll and fried rice from Wokano, along with the company of my old friend DJ Loomer whose musical influence added just the right ambience and downbeat funky tempo to our affair.

After introducing my new pal Kurt Daradics to my old friend Brad Nye one evening last summer, our after-dinner conversation led to an idea to host the first Digital Family Reunion, something that would not have been as relevant just a few years ago. What kind of opportunities could we stimulate by introducing the web1.0 community Brad and I were a part of, having hosted VIC parties in LA throughout the late 1990s, to LA’s new generation of digirati whose post-dot-com-era networking groups include the likes of Mixergy, Twiistup and DigitalLA? 

Held on December 11, 2008, the Reunion struck a chord with the digital media community in LA, attracting 800 energized professionals to the Skirball Cultural Center for a special evening of education, networking and entertainment.

Since then, we’ve had many conversations about how to harness the positive energy created that night. Beyond just networking parties for technology, media and entertainment professionals, what type of organization could the Digital Family become that would provide value far beyond anything else out there today? I’ll keep you posted on the outcome of that debate. In the meantime, we’ve planned an educational event to rally the community around a topic of common interest and importance later this month.

Digital Family Summit ’09 will be held Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at the Wokano Restaurant in Santa Monica. With a theme of “Managing Online Communities,” the program will feature a live broadcast of This Week In Startups, during which Jason Calacanis will interview MySpace COO Mike Jones and Peter Hirshberg, CEO of The Conversation Group. Use the code DFR30 when registering and save $20

In tandem with the theme of the event, we’ve partnered with E-Poll Market Research and the Charles Annenberg Weingarten Program on Online Communities at USC to launch a research study to uncover best practices for managing online communities. If you an online community builder please take our survey. If not, please forward it to somone who is!

I hope to see everyone on Sept. 23rd!

While it wasn’t to be for me to attend Burning Man this year (thanks Christian for creating that possibility and keeping the dream alive!), I did get to experience, in a very small and personal way, what the event stands for this long Labor Day weekend. Not familiar with Burning Man? Or perhaps, like some I know, you hold a negative perception of it being some hedonistic subculture with little purpose beyond an excuse to party? No worries…maybe it’s just not for you!  I’m not here to defend the festival, which is now in its 23rd year attracted around 50,000 participants. I’ll leave that to more hard core “burners.”

But what you should know, is that underlying all of the fine people, art and music that comprise the festival, there is at the end of the weeklong event a ritual of burning “the man.” I suppose the burn, and the entire event for that matter, is symbolic of whatever you want it to be. But certainly one dominant theme associated with fire and burning is renewal and the idea of shedding, both literally and figuratively, those things you are ready to leave behind.

Over the course of the past couple of weeks I’ve been cleaning my garage, part of which has included finally going through the last remnants of a company I once owned, called iAgency. Known non-affectionately around my house as “the iAgency boxes,” they contained a few hundred three ring binders that were the results of our work for clients and literally  represented the “early days” of online marketing and public relations. They were the physical representation of years of hard work and dedication by a team of young professionals in the mid-nineties too many to name, but to whom I remain endlessly grateful.

While I could not part with a few of the books for some of my favorite campaigns, like our early PR efforts for Zappos.com, creative online community programs for Symantec,  my favorite film and television projects for Fox, Paramount, NBC and Imagine Television, the extensive online marketing and PR work we did to launch Warner Bros. Online or the binder for our first clients, Hollywood Online and The Palace – I did undertake a purge that for me was of Burning Man proportions. As I let go of these heavy books representative of a past life, in my heart there was a bitter-sweet feeling of finally moving on combined with pride for all we accomplished from 1995 to 2002 and knowing that all of that experience was invaluable and led me to where I am today.

The whole Burning Man thought came as I carted off my last load of notebooks to a neighbor’s dumpster late Sunday night. As the squeaking of my antique dolly filled the quiet street, I found myself wondering what other people ready to move on and clean house may have carted out to the Playa to burn this year – or even what percentage of the people who attend even think of the event in such terms. 

While I would have of course enjoyed being there for the second time in eight years, I was equally delighted to have in a small way privately shared the experience, knowing that you don’t have to be on the Playa to have Burning Man in your heart.

The Los Angeles Business Journal article referenced in my last post came out yesterday and I thought Charles Proctor did a superb job profiling the current state of the technology industry in Los Angeles. The article, entitled “Special Report: Plugged In, Charging Up” goes into great detail comparing employment trends in the technology sector in Los Angeles with that of Silicon Valley, including how our diversified market helped LA recover faster from the dot-com crash and the way aerospace engineers transfered their expertise to industries like computer science and medical devices in the post-Cold War era.

Carrying the technology industry in 2009 is a robust games industry, alternative fuel vehicles and renewable energy and digital media and marketing. I’m quoted as saying “This is a major media location and it has a big, big talent pool,” said Tony Winders, a vice president at Westlake Village-based ValueClick Inc., a publicly traded Internet advertising company. “So the tech community settled in here as a hub for the digital advertising business.”

It was fun being asked to contribute to this piece, but even more encouraging to read an article with some quantifiable details about how well our local technology community is faring these days. Hats off to Mr. Proctor for his thoughtful, quantitative analysis, and A BIG THANK YOU to Nicole Jordan for the introduction.