Views from the front lines of the New England tech economy

BU may help end Ethernet’s reign

Will the promise of an all-optical replacement for copper-cabled Ethernet finally be fulfilled at the Boston University Photonics Center? If Irish company Intune Networks has anything to say about it, yes it will. More...

Elevate the image of the sales professional

Have you ever heard the term “sales profession”? How about “medical profession”? Which one has more credibility? As sales professionals we are biased when considering this question. More...

Making Kendall Square connections

Our spectacularly un-snowy winter has blessed us with a well-attended winter events season. (Make it cold, wet and windy, and even I don’t want to leave the house.) Our February line-up for Mass Innovation Nights was, appropriate to Kendall Square, heavy on the tech. More...

PAX East: They like us, they really like us!

Rodney Brown blogs: This week’s big news that the gaming convention PAX East has committed to staying in Boston through 2023 showcases two things - one, the folks at Penny Arcade Expo love Boston and its college-age, super-nerdy crowd, and two, Boston is one Hell of an emotionally needy city. More...

Dear Everybody: Crafting sales and marketing letters

Knowledgence Associates' Lisa Dennis: crafting a good marketing or sales “letter” (digital or otherwise) needs to sound like it’s written for the individual prospect or customer, even though necessity may dictate a one-to-few, or one-to-many approach. More...

Cost of patent reexamination may skyrocket

Thomas McNulty of Lando & Anastasi LLP: On Jan. 25, 2012, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which included a proposal to substantially increase the fees for requesting "ex parte reexamination." This fee increase will certainly affect the number of such requests filed, likely at the expense of innovation. More...

Why it's so hard to discuss money

Winning Inc.'s Mike Myers: When working with clients, one of the biggest challenges is to get salespeople to effectively discuss money with prospects early in the sales process. Here are five strategies that can make you more effective when you talk about money. More...

With Komen and SOPA, the web has finally grown up

MHT Managing Editor Rodney Brown: It wasn't until a pair of recent events that one could truly say the Internet in general and social media in particular was more than a way for people to share funny cat pictures or post horrified exclamations about what is happening on Glee. More...

Self assessment for driving revenue growth

CustomerCentric's Jim Naro: I often get called into an organization when revenue growth stalls. I start at a high level to discover where there are missing links and broken pieces within the sales organization. I've outlined a starting point for assessing your own organization. More...

Even startups need severance agreements

Parker Scheer LLP's Barry Scheer: As a business attorney, I am often asked by struggling startup company executives, faced with having to lay off employees, whether they are obligated to make severance payments...Both severance payments and severance agreements generally provide intangible benefits and social utility that far outweigh their cost — even to struggling companies. More...

Facebook data can – and should – change Congress

An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg: Dear Mr. Zuckerberg, I have a proposal that might allow Facebook to change the way governing happens in the United States: Give away aggregated political data for free to all representatives and senators in Congress. More...

Mobile TV needs to solve the security question to take off

Azuki Systems Chairman Cheng Wu: Today's consumers want to watch their favorite content when they want and on whatever device they choose. With the rise of smartphones, tablets, connected TVs, gaming consoles and streaming players, providing this experience needs to be on every video delivery company’s strategic agenda. More...

The community around Mass Innovation Nights

Mass Innovation Nights co-founder Bobbie Carlton: Feeling like a new parent leaving the baby with a sitter, I missed my first Mass Innovation Nights (MIN) on a snowless night in January, when the MIN community kicked off 2012 with a gander at 10 new products. More...

Apple: ‘SOPA, I am your father!’

Two events that happened completely coincidentally in conjunction over the past two days are connected in one disturbing — and mostly unrecognized — way. The SOPA blackout protests on the web and the Apple Inc. launch of its iBook2 textbook authoring platform. More...

CNN Best Companies list's one NE techie? Millennium

The new Fortune CNN Money list of the best companies to work for has been released, a fact that many tech companies have been pushing me to write about. But the only New England-based tech company on the list? Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Co., based in Cambridge. More...

SOPA would censor us, not websites

Rodney Brown, MHT's Managing Editor–News: Today is the SOPA Blackout protest day on the web — when giant, high-traffic sites show how overreaching the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act are by censoring themselves for a day. The problem is, most of them don't show what the real danger of these Acts, as currently written, are. More...

Going for the quick "No"

Winfree Business Growth Advisors' Ken Cheo: All of our clients list time management as one of the areas they would like some help...but many salespeople have a hard time with hearing "no" so they permit the prospect to drag them down this pathway of hope and despair only to eventually give up or get a "no." More...

Use your 2012 kick-off sales theme year-round

Knowledgence Associates' Lisa Dennis: Whether your company is large or small, the impact of the Sales Team Annual Kick-off meeting is extremely important. It's the time to layout the strategy for moving forward for the year. More...

Sci-fi war boat is real, hiding in Portsmouth

Rodney Brown, MHT Managing Editor–News: I can almost swear I saw this watercraft in a James Bond movie once, but it turns out that the GHOST stealth littoral defense ship is real, and really made by a Portsmouth, N.H., company. More...

What happens at CES in Vegas ... goes here

Rodney Brown, MHT Managing Editor-News: It looks like there are a lot of local announcements coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, as well as the concurrent and conjoined AT&T Developer Summit also in Sin City. Here's an aggregate of the announcements that come from New England tech companies. More...