Gavin Baker

I’ve been a fan of TED and TED Talks for years. (No really, see this blog post from 2007).  I’m excited to be part of the team bringing TED to Knoxville for the first time, in the form of TEDxKnoxville.  

Our theme? Explore the meaning of human potential.

So come on out for one-night  and enjoy a series of 3-12 minute on-stage presentations from some of our area’s most compelling thought leaders. It is an event you don’t want to miss, but there is a maximum of 100 seats, so buy your tickets today.

It starts at 7 pm on Wednesday, November 16, 2011.  See you there!

Can’t make it Wednesday? Follow along on Twitter at @tedxknoxville and on Facebook.com/tedxknoxville

Last week, I wrote a post on the New Streak (where I blog for work), on my participation on a panel at the Entrepreneurial Imperative 2010, a conference focused on entrepreneurship and hosted here in Knoxville, TN.  I’d highly recommend this conference as it’s one of the biggest groupings of entrepreneurial minded folks I’ve seen in Knoxville.

My session was wittily titled “Social Networking – Untangling the Web of Cutting Edge Technology.”  I talked about marketing for startups and particularly on if Facebook or Twitter was a better place to start your marketing efforts. Wondering where I suggested?  Check out the post for the full answer.

Related articles

• UT connects executives, students in new venture (knoxnews.com)

Over the weekend I had pleasure of speaking at the East Tennessee Preservation conference in historic Rugby, TN.  I’ve posted a recap of panel on using social media for historic and preservation tourism with slides and video over on the New Streak, where I blog for Moxley Carmichael.  Check it out.

Related articles

• Social media training specific to the tourism industry (drewsmarketingminute.com)
• Tourism meets social media at BlogWorld Expo (smallbizsurvival.com)
• Social media’s impact on tourism (news.bbc.co.uk)

Happy to be in the running for East Tennessee’s Best Tweeter with a couple others from the team at Moxley Carmichael, including Scott Bird and Cynthia Moxley.  (Cynthia’s also nominated for best blogger for The Blue Streak!)  Thanks for the nomination and your votes.

Please vote! Ends tonight Aug. 20!

Vote for Best Tweeter

Vote for Best Blogger

Recently I was eating a great breakfast cooked by my friend Alex and we were discussing startups and entrepreneurship in East Tennessee and we started discussing “original” startups vs buying existing businessnes or franchises and the bias in the start up community that exists against the later.

Granted Alex and I both have experience in the consumer Internet startup space, but I do find it curious that there an unspoken bias against those that do not have the genisus but just the execution.  Curious since execution is prized over creation since “ideas are a dime a dozen” yet we look down our noses at those who buy their ideas vs pulling them out of thin air.  Even though pulling them out of thin air is an important skill.

So where they fit in the ecosystem?

How do we learn from these entrepreneurs who aren’t always obsessed with technology, yet often produce results?
Where do we engage with them?

What do you think?

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• Reason to Not Not Do a Startup: The Idea (jamessiminoff.com)
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• What do successful startups have in common? (techstartups.com)