The Future of TV

Here's an interesting post by Mark Suster on his Both Sides of the Table blog. Great insights into the future of television and the digital living room: http://bit.ly/c8ntaU

What Are Investors Looking for in the CEO?

Here's an interesting post by Martin Zwilling: "Investors Are Looking for the Startup Dream Team".

http://bit.ly/cZDFQA

Presentations - ISN's Event at IBM, Oct 12, 2010 - A Glimpse of Future Opportunities and How to Benefit from Them

Yesterday's well-attended event (98 people arriving from as far as the Galilee in the North and Beer Sheva in the South) was a great success. Interesting speakers, unique topics, perfect venue. Thanks again to IBM for their gracious hospitality.

Links to the speakers' PPTs can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/IsraelStartupNetwork/files/
Tom Mueck: Using Languages for Market Entry
Tsvi Bisk: Israel and the Energy Crisis
ISN Announcements

Info about IBM's Global Entrepreneur Program (GEP) can be found here:
http://www-304.ibm.com/isv/startup

IBM Award Winner Proves Social Media Works for B2B

From the GoMidjets Blog, http://gomidjets.com/blog/?p=455

GoMidjets has managed to reach target audiences in large enterprises through IBM’s DeveloperWorks network and social media, winning the Beacon Award for outstanding contribution to the developers community.

Rome, May 18th. Tamir Gefen, CEO of GoMidjets, won the IBM Beacon Award for outstanding contribution to DeveloperWorks, IBM’s network for developers and IT professionals. The marketing strategy of GoMidjets, a vendor specializing in IBM Rational plugins, focuses on reaching key position holders through social media and developing a highly targeted install base for its niche products.

Left to right: Rich Hume (General Manager, Global business partners and mid-market, IBM), Tamir Gefen (GoMidjets) and Jim Corgel (General manager, ISV & Developer Relations, IBM)

“The company was founded in social media,” says Mr. Gefen. “Two years ago I opened a professional blog, as a way to share knowledge and connect to other professionals working with IBM products. One night I shared a script I wrote on my blog, and was amazed at how many people downloaded it with no other marketing except my blog post. It became clear that a good solution can get a wide audience through social media tools.”

GoMidjet’s clients are large enterprises who have a large R&D team. Reaching administrators and managers in such organizations is considered especially difficult through traditional marketing efforts. Yet GoMidjets has managed to reach an install base of thousands of users in organizations such as federal agencies, Oracle, Motorola, Thales, STMicroElectronics, Ness, Comverse and many more.
Today, GoMidjets markets its solutions in IBM DeveloperWorks, LinkedIn, Twitter, professional forums and is considering entering Facebook. The company has 2 active blogs in English: Tamir Gefen on ALM, and GoMidjet’s corporate blog.

“The key is to reach a very specific niche and work with the community to provide value,” Mr. Gefen explains, “we don’t just develop products and drop them into the marketplace. We listen to the pains of users and administrators, and use it as a starting point for new features and products. In this way we ensure that our plugins solve real problems for real people. We have also shared new features and beta versions with connections on social media, and the feedback has been invaluable.”

GoMidjets has developed three productivity plugins for IBM Rational ClearCase:
ClearEnv – Automatically installs development environments in ClearCase, with a special focus on  heterogeneous systems, Agile methodology, distributed environments, and more.
ClearCheck – Automatically checks database health in development environments, contributing to business continuity and risk mitigation.
CompBL – Advanced version comparison for better control of the R&D process and gathering Business Intelligence (BI) about development processes.
All products are seamlessly integrated with ClearCase environments, compliant with UNIX/ Linux and Windows, and certified by the IBM Innovation Lab.

About GoMidjets
GoMidjets provides products and services for configuration management (CM) and application life-cycle management (ALM). The company specializes in IBM Rational products and heterogeneous environments and recently won the IBM Beacon Award. GoMidjets was founded in 2009 by Tamir Gefen, a recognized expert with over a decade of experience. Mr. Gefen managed CM and ALM projects at the Israeli Air Force, an international professional services company, and large enterprises.

 

Israeli chutzpah a hot commodity in China

ISN Member Tal Reshef's article on Ynetnews:

Israeli innovation, forward thinking and lack of discipline may just be what Chinese are missing on way to becoming world's biggest economy. Meanwhile, they are being hindered by their own culture of modesty, hierarchy and intolerance to criticism ...

Tal Reshef

Published:  10.09.10, 09:12 / Israel Business Ynetnews http://t.co/vVRTTCX

Tal is a Chinese business culture lecturer and consultant. He helps companies understand the Chinese way of doing business, and create good ties for effective results.

Featured Service Provider – Ellen Shankman, Attorney and Trademark Specialist

I am very pleased to introduce you to Ellen Shankman, our first Featured Service Provider. Ellen is an American-Israeli attorney and one of the foremost specialists in Internet trademarks. She is a strong supporter of the protection of brands - as well as consumer confidence in the Internet. Having moved to Israel from the US in 1986, Ellen has created a niche in trademark and IP law in Israel. In one of her first cases, she defended Boeing in a precedent-setting trademark infringement suit. She currently represents some of the top FORTUNE 500 companies, including major Internet search companies, ISPs, luxury goods and high tech firms. She was co-chair of last year’s International Trademark Association’s (INTA) Law and Internet Forum in San Francisco, is the former chair of the INTA’s Internet Committee, and has assisted the organization in a wide range of issues - including cyber squatting, counterfeiting, and phishing, as well as brand protection in virtual worlds. Serving a term on ICANN’s 3-member IP Constituency, she represented the ‘rest of the world’, with the other two members representing the US and Europe. Ellen is the mother of four and is also an artist whose work graces her office in Rehovot. You can read more about her in an article published on the Israel21c site. http://www.israel21c.org/people/israeli-trademark-lawyer-blazes-trail-on-internet-policy

Contact Info:

Ellen B. Shankman & Associates
Office Address:  10 Plaut Street
Park Tamar, Rehovot
Mailing Address:  13 Weizmann Street
Rehovot 76280 Israel
Tel:  +972-8-946-5310
       +972-544-979-026
Fax: +972-8-946-8779
Email: ellen at ellenshankman.com
www.ellenshankman.com

Outstanding Service Providers Among Our Members

Our membership includes a number of highly-respected service providers working in a variety of fields, including Marketing, Marketing Communications, PR, Business Development, Law, Investment Banking, Accounting, Software Outsourcing, and Sales. We will be spotlighting many of these professionals in the coming months, and we invite you to suggest members of our group who are experts in areas relevant to startups.

Featured Startup: iDiag, Oren Shibi - Founder

Oren Shibi,  founder of iDiag, has a rather unique background for a startup entrepreneur ---- he worked as a race car driver in Italy and the UK - competing in six Formula 3 races. This gave him some exceptional experience in telemetry and diagnosing car behavior and engine faults.

Always a car enthusiast, Oren dreamed that a little elf would sit next to him while taking his cars apart, and help him reconnect whatever he had disassembled. Actually, according to Oren, until the 90’s, fixing cars was relatively easy, but today, you need to be an electrician just to look under the hood. And, as it happens, Oren worked as an electronic technician - fixing aircraft for the Israeli Air Force - so, fixing cars is a piece of cake for him. Well, almost. When fixing aircraft, you have all the tools and materials you need, but, when fixing cars, the situation is apparently quite a bit different.

In fact, the idea for I-Diag developed as Oren began to realize that, though there is a great deal of information on the web regarding car repairs, the info is scattered, unreliable, and usually doesn’t show you exactly what you need to do. Typically, you have to spend a lot of time searching, and often, you don’t find what you need. This is true not only for DIY’ers, but also for independent workshops - who often can’t find solutions for even the most minor electrical problems.

Oren decided to create a company that would provide an effective and complete solution for car repairs for the global automotive industry.  Soon after, he met several people, most of them from the Air Force, who together had a unique combination of relevant know-how and skills. Among them were commanders, programmers, technicians, animation and simulation specialists … and, each one made a significant contribution to the creation of iDiag. Their dream was built on their understanding of how automotive diagnostic procedures should be carried out --- based on how it is done for avionic systems --- and to implement these processes for the first time - inexpensively and yet in a very sophisticated manner - in the automotive industry.

Oren and his team developed databases of faults to determine which systems and components were faulty and how to generate a better life cycle for them. Today, leveraging the team’s expertise and years of experience in the Israeli Air Force, avionics and the auto industry, the company creates databases for real-time guided (animated) diagnostics of faults and ongoing vehicle maintenance.

iDiag’s products provide first-of-their-kind simulation tools for trained technicians, as well as for novices, that significantly decrease maintenance time - and enable off-the-chart savings. The products are targeted to several markets: DIY, independent garages and spare parts shops, OEM’s (Automakers), auto dealers, and vehicle fleets.

iDiag is currently seeking distributors to assist with market penetration, partnerships with industry leaders that can jointly develop their markets, and, of course - funding to assist with the penetration of OEMs.

Contact Info:

Oren Shibi

CEO, iDiag Ltd.

Tel: +972-72-243-243-3

Cel: +972-54-6230452

eMail: orenshibi@i-diag.com

Skype: orenshibi

Web: www.i-diag.com  

Intro to the ISN Blog

Hi, Everyone,

This blog is dedicated to Israeli startups and to the ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors and service providers who make up – and make possible – the Israeli high tech industry … that continuously astounding adventure called Silicon Wadi.

Most especially, this blog is for and about the members of the IsraelStartupNetwork – a group that began on Meetup.com and that continues to expand into new and exciting directions.  http://www.meetup.com/IsraelStartupNetwork

We will provide information, links, opportunities, notifications, and a forum for our members … as well as articles about our members - entrepreneurs and service providers alike - for what we hope will become a global audience.

Your suggestions and contributions are always welcome. We encourage you to comment on the posts, submit your stories, and become guest authors.

All the best,

Arlene Marom

Organizer:  IsraelStartupNetwork