The J.P. Allen Blog

Announcing the exciting new “You belong in tech” campaign

Tech is back, people.  Two huge reasons:

• Tech is still innovating big-time.  Thanks to innovation, tech-centric industries (software, networks, online, services), and closely related industries (electronics, telcos, digital media, entertainment, gaming, tech consulting), are going strong in tough economic times. We’re the ‘real’ economy now!
• Hardcore tech is easier to access than ever.  It’s never been easier to move beyond being just a ‘user’ by actually customizing, assembling, and developing your very own apps and services.

In an effort to capture the excitement of this new era, we have launched the non-award-winning “You belong in tech” ad campaign to get students fired up.  The campaign only consists of an eight slide presentation, but each slide is extremely high impact.

We have also launched the Campaign for Real Tech (CRT), which consists entirely of this blog post.  CRT believes that a business school education in San Francisco deserves serious tech coverage. Students, if you want to learn more about any of these topics, leave a comment on this page, or grab your nearest b-school administrator:

social media, social technologies, online communities, tech product management, tech marketing and sales, web 2.0, open source, open innovation, enterprise architectures, web analytics, web apps, e-commerce (yes, it’s back), content management, customer relationship management, APIs and platforms, search engine placement, online ads, online experience management, usability, virtual worlds, mobility, location-based services, sensor tech, or enterprise 2.0

If you want to change the world, this is the time.

Virtual Worlds 101: Panel at National Institute on Cyberlaw

I created this 10-minute introduction to Virtual Worlds (think Second Life, but also online games like World of Warcraft and social networks with ‘rooms’ like Cyworld) for the panel on “Legal Developments in Virtual Reality” at the American Bar Association’s Second Annual National Institute on CyberLaw.  I shared the limelight with gaming lawyer Sean Kane, IBM’s legal strategist for virtual worlds Steve Mortinger, and Mark Rasch, with Andy Grosso moderating.

In my remarks, I advise folks to keep an eye out for these Virtual World trends:  open source to create your own worlds, public grids, virtual workspaces, serious gaming, casual gaming, and the return of virtual reality technologies (now that we have more interesting places to visit, maybe it’s time to start digging those gloves and goggles out of the closet).

The legal types seem to be most interested in virtual property rights and regulating money transactions, but we had time to talk about fun stuff like the virtual ’strike’ against IBM in Second Life.  A continuing point of controversy:  the terms of service for most virtual worlds give users little recourse if a company decides to suspend or delete their account. But what if I built and furnished my whole mansion online?