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Feature Story
CES Sizzles for Inventures Clients
The 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas started the year with a splash for several of our technology association clients. Amidst the glitz and big bucks displays, HomePlug, MoCA, WiMedia and ZigBee held their own on a much smaller scale, and the Mobile DTV Alliance and SD Card Association hosted off-site events, demos or meetings to take advantage of the venue. CES is overwhelmingly enormous, so the key to fully exploiting the opportunity lies in strong project planning, targeted pre-event communication to press, analysts and prospects, and flawless on-site logistical execution.
The WiMedia Alliance staged its third annual Ultrawideband TechZone pavilion, with 18 member companies participating with booths or kiosks. The 70' x 30' space in the Central Hall featured the theme "Real and Ready" and drew wide-eyed gawkers to a gleaming Mercedes-Benz R500 which contained a prototype demo of high-definition video streaming wirelessly from a handheld device to a rear entertainment system.
The ZigBee Alliance also featured a member-supported pavilion with over 30 products on display from 9 participating companies. The 70' x 20' ZigBee TechZone had a high profile location in the South Hall which enjoyed good foot traffic and served a base for numerous press interviews including the Wall Street Journal.
Other Inventures clients on the trade show floor at CES included the HomePlug Powerline Alliance and the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) which both had 10'x20' spaces and have both tripled their space reservation for 2008.
Off the floor, the Mobile DTV Alliance hosted an invitation-only reception for members, press and analysts at Gordon Biersch in Las Vegas, and had a suite at the Hilton for product demos and press briefings. Although the SD Card Association chose to skip CES this year to focus on other, more specialized shows, the SDA Marketing Committee and Board of Directors held meetings following the show since so many members were already gathered in Las Vegas. All in all, it was a busy and productive week…now on the next project!
Inventures Service Spotlight
Corporate Governance and Compliance: Sometimes it's the "little things" that matter
One of the roles that we play as an association management company - particularly at the Executive Director and Account Manager functions - is to provide oversight and guidance on complying with statutory requirements of good corporate governance. Occasionally, this puts us in the role of bureaucratic watchdog or worse, the "strict nanny" of processes.
And nobody loves a process geek…but they love it when projects are completed on-time with no rework and backtracking, because the process was done right the first time.
In our corporate governance role, we are not lawyers and can't give advice on specific statutes; but we usually work closely with the outside counsels retained by our clients. This helps ensure that corporate records are properly maintained, anti-trust reminders are posted and read at the commencement of meetings, and financial processes are transparent and GAAP auditable.
Good corporate governance is good business. None of the groups that we manage have ever been embroiled in legal action, and all our clients who incorporated as non-profit groups have successfully received their tax exempt status with the IRS as 501(c) 6 corporations. Maintaining complete and accurate corporate records can be a surprisingly time-consuming task, but fortunately we have consistent systems and automation to support this effort. From backing up email reflector archives to clean membership database, to maintaining corporate minutes, to financial reports and IRS filings, your organization needs to know that all legal and functional requirements of running a corporation are being met by an experienced team of professionals.
Global Inventures has the proven track record with corporate governance. Whether it's a small, medium or large organization, we sweat the details so that our clients can focus on strategic planning, technical deliverables and sleeping soundly at night.
~Paul Ritchie, Executive Director and VP, Relationship Management
Global Inventures CEO to Present at 2007 Standards Conference
Global Inventures CEO Deepak Kamlani will present at the Standards Edge: The Role of Standardization in Innovation, at Georgetown University March 21 and 22, 2007. Kamlani will deliver his presentation on March 21 as part of the "Best approaches to standardization to foster innovation" panel.
Staff Spotlight
We like to use this newsletter as a chance to "put a face to a name" for some of our clients and friends who have not had a chance to meet Inventures team members in person.
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Susan Lowe - Account Manager
Susan supports several of our key clients as Account Manger and brings lots of savvy, efficiency and creativity to her position. She has over twenty years experience in technology including twelve years in product marketing and marcom for a semiconductor manufacturer and in a Director-level position at AT&T (formerly SBC) responsible for managed data security services. She holds a MBA from the University of San Francisco and a BS from the University of Illinois, Urbana in Business Administration.
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Peter Koepke - Member Services Coordinator
As one of our Member Services Coordinators, Peter handles customer support for several of our groups, and does his cheerful part to keep the Virtual Business Office machine humming. Before joining the Global Inventures team in early 2006, he worked as the manager of a retail store for over 10 years and as a project manager for Bank of Hawaii and owned his own business for 15 years.
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Thia Parodi - Marketing Programs Manager
Thia joined Inventures last year and brings 10 years of experience in public relations and marketing communications across a broad range of industries including high tech. She most recently worked with Atomic Pubic Relations in their network security practice, where she managed all functions of public relations, planning & strategy, and messaging development. Prior to Atomic, she was a PR & Marketing Consultant for Three Boys Public Relations working with software, wireless and financial services clients.
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Trey Holland - Director of IT Services
As our Director of Information Technology, Trey manages our team of developers and web specialists and a system admin. Trey and his staff oversee the maintenance and enhancements to our ASP portal tools as well as the managed hosting and support for client web/database/mail functionality. Trey was previously an IT Consultant at Accenture and his own firm and was Director of IT at Paperloop for 4 years. He has degrees from University of Texas, Austin and University of Montana.
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Upcoming Events
- HomePlug Powerline Alliance Showcasing at CEBIT 2007, March 7-8 - Hong Kong
- HomePNA Certification and Interoperability Plugfest, March 26-30 - Kanata, Ontario
- IMTC Super Op! 2007, April 23-27 - Jesi, Italy
- Mobile DTV Alliance Networking Event at 3GSM 2007, February 14 - Barcelona, Spain
- Mobile DTV Alliance Member Meeting and Open House, March 20-22 - San Antonio, TX
- Mobile DTV Alliance at CTIA Wireless, March 27-29 - Orlando, FL
- Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) at IPTV 2007, February 27-28 - San Jose, CA
- ZigBee Member Meeting, February 12-16 - Austin, TX
- ZigBee at ESC, April 1-5 - San Jose, CA
- ZigBee Developers' Conference, April 3-5 - San Jose, CA in conjunction with ESC
- OSGi DevCon 2007 at ECLIPSECON 2007, March 5-8 - Santa Clara, CA
- SD Card Association 2007 Spring Meeting, April 11 - 13, 2007 - Seoul, Korea
- UPnP Implementers Corporation (UIC) at CONNECTIONS, May 1-7 - Santa Clara, CA
- WiMedia Alliance Pavilion at 3GSM, February 12-15 - Barcelona, Spain
- WiMedia Alliance Member Meeting & Open House, February 20-22 - Brussels, Belgium
Contacting Global Inventures
help@________.org
Occasionally, individuals who participate in groups we manage aren't sure whom to contact for administrative and membership issues regarding their alliance. Although different account teams support various collaborative communities, the shortest and surest path to support is to send an email to help@[your-association].org. All inquiries are logged in our HelpDesk application and routed to the appropriate person - Member Services, Web, Account Manager, Executive Director, etc. The sophisticated HelpDesk application enables our member services coordinators to view all messages and track the complete history of each message, to allow them to streamline and constantly improve contact. We're here to support you, the members.
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