MC Hammer (real name: Stanley Burrell) — rapper, entrepreneur, social media maven and TV star on A&E’s “Hammertime” — gave the key note talk at today’s Gravity Summit social media marketing event for businesses.
Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Gravity Summit, which holds seminars across the U.S. to educate marketers about the uses of social media, held its all-day event at the Harvard Faculty Club.
The summit offered tips on how companies can take advantage of social media and featured a variety of speakers, from MC Hammer to executives from Boston-based Arnold Worldwide, the American Red Cross and CNN. (The event was also streamed live on CNN.com.)
With about 1.3 million followers on Twitter, MC Hammer, once known mainly for the hit “U Can’t Touch this” and puffy, parachute pants, wields a hefty amount of social media clout these days. Now he spends much of his time making the rounds to Harvard, Stanford University and organizations to dole out social media tidbits to help both businesses and musicians.
MC Hammer, who engages in all forms of social media, says it’s not a question any more of whether social media works. He whole-heartedly thinks that it does. He noted that for most businesses, it’s a good idea to find out where your audience is (i.e. Twitter, Facebook etc.) and engage with them.
“If you’re allowing someone else to control the perception of the brand, then you’re in trouble,” MC Hammer said at the event, which was attended by about 150 people.
MC Hammer also said that despite having tweeted over 6,000 times and counting, he’s never regreted a single tweet.
Other attendees of the event included Arnold Worldwide CEO Fran Kelly, Mullen chief creative officer Edward Boches and Shift Communications Principal Todd Defren.
Speaker Wendy Harman, social media manager at the American Red Cross, had some interesting points about how nonprofits use social media. The Red Cross, according to Harman, uses Twitter to “execute its mission” and update the public about disasters in real time.
Meanwhile, Todd Defren of Shift noted that people want to interact with brands that “humanize” themselves and have authentic things to say.
Or, as MC Hammer would say, brands just need to make sure their social media interactions are legit.
I’d thought about doing this before, but it would have taken screen scraping schedule information off the site. I learned recently through a developer outreach that the Massachusetts Department of Transportation is running that the MBTA had released their schedule information in the Google transit feed specification (GTFS). With the data in hand, I went to work using the ruby-processing wrapper of the excellent Processing graphics toolkit.
New Atlantic Ventures managing partner Todd Hixon calls on East Coast innovators to change the local culture and rise up against Silicon Valley:
… We in Boston should take advantage of being the underdogs: create our own “rebel alliance” to shake off the yoke of California tech giants and VCs. California is a bit complacent in its achievement, and mired in fiscal crisis. Our society has entered into a period of reform. New technology drivers are emerging (biotech, clean tech) in fields where Boston has strong resources.
The LA Times takes a look at the Beatles: Rock Band — developed by Cambridge-based Harmonix — and notes parent-company Viacom’s shift away from hardware:
Although MTV is offering a limited edition of the Beatles: Rock Band with instruments based on ones used by the band, it costs $250, $70 more than the equivalent version of Rock Band 2 last year. Dollar-conscious consumers who don’t already have instrument controllers will probably be attracted to a $160 “value bundle” that uses ones from the original Rock Band that Viacom has been unable to sell.
The marketing material for the Beatles: Rock Band urges consumers to use Guitar Hero controllers, enabling Viacom to piggyback on its more successful rival.
Scott Kirsner writes about two spinouts from the MIT Media Lab — Waltham-based Affectiva, which makes an emotion-sensing wristband to help study autism, and an unnamed robotics startup founded by Cynthia Breazeal, director of the Media Lab’s Personal Robotics Group, which developed emotion-imitating robot Nexi.
Much more nascent is Cynthia Breazeal’s new company. I’ve been told that it’s going to develop some remotely-operated robotic toys, but Breazeal will only say via e-mail that she’s “doing something innovative in the transmedia space.” It’s not yet incorporated, and she hasn’t yet started pitching investors (though one VC I spoke to last week had already heard about it through the grapevine.) “We’re still working through the concept,” she writes, adding that the company doesn’t yet have a name.
… Specifically Flybridge’s Michael Greeley, who lists some things that get on his nerves:
Number 4: “Can I just get a few minutes of your time?” Really? This happens all the time between vendors and clients, VC’s and LP’s, entrepreneurs and VC’s, service providers and anyone who will listen to them. Nothing ever takes a few minutes. Ask me for 30 minutes of my time and I will happily give it, but don’t ask for 5 minutes and make me late for my next appointment 20 minutes later.
Boston Millennia Partners partner Rob Jevon lists his top ten no-nos for biotech entrepreneurs looking for venture funding:
Mistake #9: Valet Parking
VCs are willing to invest in a proven management team, good IP counsel, and effective regulatory and CMC (certified management consultant) consulting. However, driving to an address in a high rent district may make them feel a little anxious. Seeing a fountain in front of the building will bring on chills. And, if there’s valet parking, they’ll drive back to the office. Venture is about building value. Capital efficiency has never been so important. Low rents, two people to an office, used furniture, obviously recycled artwork, second-hand lab equipment, co-op students, and a grouchy controller are all positive elements to a site visit. How you don’t spend your money can be as important as how you do.
The first domain name ever registered — Symbolics.com, in 1985 — has been bought by domain speculator XF.com:
Symbolics, Inc – a spinoff from the MIT AI Lab – was a computer manufacturer headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and later in Concord, Massachusetts, that designed and manufactured a line of Lisp machines, single-user computers optimized to run the Lisp programming language. The machines became the first commercially available “general-purpose computers” or “workstations” way before those terms were coined.
iRobot’s new Warrior 700 robot is a bigger version of the PackBot, and can carry and deploy the smaller robot:
The Warrior 700 was recently put through its paces at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) unmanned systems event in Washington, DC. By rising up on the articulated treads, the Warrior was able to extend its arm and drop the PackBot through a window. The PackBot is rugged enough to survive the short drop to the floor, and using the Warrior to deliver it keeps the operators safely out of harm’s way.
After the jump, watch video of an early Warrior prototype in a rescue simulation. (more…)
iRobot’s new 
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