December 21, 2006 by jack petrie.

Working the Room and Attracting New Business

On December 6th, NYSIA (New York Software Industry Association) hosted a very successful SIG (Special Interest Group) meeting on self marketing and networking strategies at CRESA Partners’ New York City offices, hosted and moderated by Sherri Sklar of Sherri Sklar Strategies, LLC. The presenter, Andrea Nierenberg, CEO, The Nierenberg Group had prepared a hands-on networking workshop. Attendees were invited to a pot luck style event where learning and practicing went hand-in-hand. Over 40 people followed the call and enjoyed the evening.

The True Art of Networking

Have you ever wondered how some people possess the type of skills that make them shine and stand out in a crowd? They are able to walk into a room, create a presence, make connections and persuade the client or prospect in a way like no other. What are the tactics and strategies of networking that cause the client or prospect to stand up and take note or to become engaged whether at a social function or business meeting.

After moving to New York, where Andrea Nierenberg knew no one, she networked her way to 1,500 new business contacts. Now, based on the principles she learned, Andrea speaks to businesses around the world about why networking is the most powerful business development tool you can have. What’s the secret? It comes from a simple strategy of finding out how to be a giver through networking.

How many trade shows or business events have you noticed people only focusing on their own personal gain from meeting new people? What Andrea will show you is how to visualize ways to make a positive first impression that has the potential to turn into lifelong business relationships. In this session, the whole focus will be on the opportunity to deepen the share of the wallet by understanding and implementing the techniques of networking and how to connect, engage and interact with our clients and prospects to create and win more business in a positive relationship building way.

Wall Street Journal’s “Networking Success Story”

The Wall Street Journal called Andrea Nierenberg a “networking success story.” She is a master at helping companies build their businesses by improving employee and client relationships. Andrea’s training methods all focus on one principle: take care of your business relationships, and your business will prosper. With a 25-year sales and marketing background, Andrea heads The Nierenberg Group, a business consulting firm based in New York. Her company works with the world’s leading businesses, such as Citigroup, Time Inc., TIAA-CREF, Food Network, Lehman Brothers, Omnicom, Coach, and Tiffany. Andrea’s book, Nonstop Networking: How To Improve Your Life, Luck and Career, is used by companies as a business development “textbook” and is a top seller at Amazon.com. Her next book, Million Dollar Networking: The Sure Way to Find, Grow and Keep Your Business, will be released in the fall of 2005. Andrea was honored by Office Depot and the National Association for Female Executives as Business Woman of the Year. She also received a Silver Apple Award from the Direct Marketing Association of New York for her long-time service.

Former Dale Carnegie Training Instructor

Prior to establishing The Nierenberg Group, Andrea was publisher and sales director of Target Marketing Magazine, and taught Dale Carnegie courses for 14 years. She has taught her business development courses to undergraduate and MBA students at the nation’s top educational institutions, including the University of Chicago, Baruch College, and New York University. A native of Illinois and a long-time resident of New York City, Andrea graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in Business and Psychology.

Harvard MBA Moderator

Sherri Sklar Strategies, LLC is a sales, marketing and business development consulting firm that delivers measurable results from assessment, proven strategies, and excellence in execution. Sherri Sklar has built a star track record in helping organizations (including CRESA Partners) obtain exceptional results. Over the last 20 years, she has enabled organizations to make dramatic turnarounds, helping under-performing divisions achieve significant growth in the most difficult of marketplace conditions. Ms. Sklar has helped organizations in marketing strategy and execution, sales strategy, sales execution and performance, business development strategy, channel management, and communication skills training. A frequent presenter at seminars and conferences, Ms. Sklar practices and teaches ‘peak performance delivery’, a proprietary technique Ms. Sklar employs to help clients achieve optimal results. Ms. Sklar received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA from Newcomb College at Tulane University.

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December 18, 2006 by jack petrie.

Event Report

CRESA Partners recently hosted the December 6th iBreakfast panel discussion of Web 2.0 Search featuring presentations by Kayak, TV Eyes, myTriggers and FAST. If you had to describe the next world of search it would have eyes, ears, a brain, doggedness and a way to travel by canoe, or make that Kayak.

TV Eyes’ Video Search

Founder David Ives described how TV Eyes does video search by using its ears. TV Eyes listens to the audio track in a video, turns it into text and then indexes the results. This door-opening technology makes it possible for videos to tag themselves, generate transcripts and get translated into other languages. So yes, you really could listen in on Al Jazeera and find out what fair and balanced means in another language.

TV Eyes’ spoken word indexing of video content is based on what’s actually said within a video. The business model is to generate revenue from displaying ads linked to and alongside video content when and where relevant. (There are a number of emerging competitors in this space, including Critical Mention and Scanscout.)

Kayak Travel Search

Kayak, as its name sort of suggests, is about travel, not just camping but real travel. Formed by ex-Orbitz and other online travel company executives, the site not only delivers hotel and flight information in a travel meta-search engine, but also gives feedback from actual travelers. Kayak.com’s deep relationships into travel provider websites enables the site to deliver more specific results. New features allows user to “pin” a result, sending it to the top of a page and retaining a preference.

myTriggers Shopping Search

myTriggers is a shopping engine that turns pay-per-click on its ear by taking a cut of its partner’s sales. Thus, the results are as honest as the
affiliated deals they have which now number over 100 million products. The most interesting part is that the listing directly reflects vendor inventory and links directly to the vendors’ checkout system. Some audience members feared this structure would deprive the vendor of ad revenue. But in fact, once a shopper lands on the shopping cart page and has their wallet open, ready to buy, that is the ideal place to ask: what else would they like to buy?

MyTriggers.com natural shopping search features no paid advertisements. The business model is to collect fees from etailers based on click-through conversion sales. This avoids many of the click-fraud issues inherent in paid search sites. MyTriggers.com was launched on Black Friday 2006 by Glenn Myers, formerly CEO of SKYT and RRRR.

FAST Enterprise Search

FAST is an enterprise search engine which helps companies integrate their own intelligence with the way the world looks in, from behind the firewall. Aside from making the companies’ own digital assets intelligently searchable, FAST is also able to make sense of who is looking in, and help viewers get to the information the company wants them to have. Artificial intelligence and a host sophisticated technologies take search to a whole new place with these techniques.

FAST Enterprise Search is a public company founded in 1997, with 750 employees. Matching customers/employeees to communities of content and commerce, FAST features a “learning algorithm” that learns user’s preferences with experience, using a semantic network. Clients include MTV, Comcast, Softbank, Zibb (B2B search). FAST’s R&D group is based in Oslo, Norway.

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December 8, 2006 by jack petrie.

Three executives join New York team, four members to head Florida operations

CRESA Partners’ client PixFusion LLC (http://www.pixfusion.com/), creator of personalized, branded video products, has expanded its management team, hiring three executives in New York and added four managers to run new offices operating out of Palm Beach and Cooper City, Florida.

Ex-DigiKidz, Inc. CEO Joins Team

Marlo Gold, formerly chief executive officer of DigiKidz, Inc., has joined the company as general manager of PixFusion Florida and will oversee the team including; Mark Bender and Scott Aschbrenner, product development co-directors and David Gold, director of business development. In New York, Urmalena Gomes has been named marketing director; Erik Slavin director of content development; and Laura Perrotta director of content production.
“All of our new management talent bring great experience and expertise to the PixFusion team,” said Marc E. Jaffe, CEO of PixFusion. “With this significant increase in personnel and geographic reach, we’re looking forward to dramatic growth in the next six to twelve months.”

Palm Beach & Cooper City, Florida Operations

Marlo Gold, who will oversee the overall Florida operations and have marketing and strategic planning responsibilities, has extensive expertise with brand product licensing. In 2004, she co-founded DigiKidz, Inc. with David Gold and served as its CEO and President. David Gold, PixFusion’s director of business development in Florida, will focus on building significant new distribution channels and overseeing critical strategic retail and online sales relationships.
Aschbrenner and Bender, product development co-directors, join PixFusion from DigiKidz as well. At DigiKidz Bender was in charge of development of the company’s DVD personalization method and story enhancement design and was responsible for creation and fulfillment of licensed character personalized DVD products. Aschbrenner has a background in animation and music production as well as scripting and production management.

Ex-All Kinds of Minds, Disney Features, American Film Institue Team Members

Gomes joins PixFusion from New York based All Kinds of Minds, an institute that translates the latest research on how children learn into programs, products, and services to help students improve performance and become more successful learners. She managed a comprehensive direct consumer marketing and online program. Her primary PixFusion responsibilities will be creating and implementing marketing plans to drive consumer sales, coordinating all direct to consumer online and offline campaigns, and overseeing public relations, promotion, DRTV, and advertising.

Perrotta will be responsible for collaborating with internal business, sales and marketing departments to develop licensed properties and create production strategies for personalized children’s products. She will also deal with external licensors, agencies and third party vendors to ensure the product’s brand and quality integrity. Perrotta brings 15 years of animation production management experience at such companies as Disney Features and TV Animation and Warner Bros. TV Animation and most recently has worked on Academy Award nominated features such as the Twentieth Century Fox animated feature “Ice Age.”

Slavin will oversee the production of PixFusion content for traditional and new media, creating new technologies and markets for PixFusion’s personalization system. A former Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute, he is a founding member and Creative Director of the non-profit RIPFEST collaborative Film Project.

iParenting Media Award Recipient