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Just before ITEXPO in Los Angeles Sept. 1-3 be sure to check out the Avaya session titled Technology on Tap: The Social Enterprise - Are you ready for it? This is where you can learn how to integrate Facebook, Twitter and other platforms into your enterprise and customer communications.

Taking place Monday August 31, 2009 at the (show hotel) Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles from 7:00pm-9:30pm, attendees will have a chance to listen to and meet Paul Dunay the author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies and get a chance to check out Avaya Labs innovations.

Social media is becoming a more important element in corporate marketing and communications and I really give Avaya tremendous credit for choosing to educate companies on the topic.

As an added bonus the event will conclude with some handcrafted ales from the Bonaventure Brewing Company. Here are more details and event registration.

If you are interested in Dunay you can find a mini biography below:

Paul Dunay has spent more than 20 years in marketing, generating demand and creating buzz for leading technology companies such as Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Nuance, Cisco and BearingPoint. He also has delivered work for American Express, Motorola, Genzyme, Novartis, Citigroup, Cendant and Ernst & Young.

Paul currently is the Global Managing Director of Services Marketing for Avaya. His unique approach to integrated marketing has been recognized as the 2008 Winner of the DemandGen Award for Utilizing Marketing Automation to Fuel Corporate Growth, a 2007 & 2006 finalist and the 2005 winner of the Driving New Demand award by the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA).

Google today unveiled Listen, an application which allows users of the company's Android devices to search for content in podcasts based on keywords in the headline and description of the content. To me the incredible thing about this application is that it doesn't work with the iPhone, Windows Mobile or Nokia devices. No, this app is Android only at the moment. And while we may seem "Listen" on other platforms soon, for now Google has the potential to use the app to push sales of Android devices.

Google needs to walk a fine line between developing applications which have the ability to be used by the largest potential audience possible while at the same time they need to ensure Android is differentiated in the market with unique applications. What I like about this app in particular is that it leverages something Google does well, search and extends it nicely while users are on the go. And as it so happens, finding interesting podcasts is something many users grapple with so it will be interesting to see if the app gets extended out to the Pre and other gadgets and if this move marks a new trend of Android specific apps for Google.

Here is a new page dedicated to most of the features, benefits and events at ITEXPO West 2009 which takes place in Los Angeles in 13 days. We will update the page as new things happen or are worth sharing. In addition here is the first show daily from the event which is an electronic newsletter designed to keep you posted on the show. Be sure to register ASAP to get these delivered to you via e-mail.

Over 70 companies founded by one person in one industry - communications/technology (to be fair he owns hotels and golf courses as well). Over the years, tens of thousands of people were hired because of the vision of Sir Terry Matthews. He is not only a legend in communications and technology he is a legend in business.

Matthews has made his money but has not stopped investing in new companies. In fact he is running at full speed (perhaps flying is a more appropriate term - his corporate jet is among the fastest built) hiring college graduates to look for new opportunities and start companies to fill the voids they uncover. The new hires get equity and are instructed to reach profitability as rapidly as possible - as little as a year in many cases.

There is virtually nothing like a meeting with this man. I called it drinking from a fire hose a few years back. The energy, the passion, and the accent - it is a mix neural sensations which excite, delight and sometimes even perplex. Especially when you start to think how he does it. Where does the energy come from? It seems limitless. And so does the knowledge - he is a true living historical encyclopedia on tech, telecom and entrepreneurship.

Sir Terry Matthews will be keynoting at ITEXPO West 2009 in Los Angeles September 2nd at 2:15 PM. To say hearing him speak is worth the trip would be an understatement. I hope to see you there.

If you like soap operas, communications, technology, bankruptcies and pension liability discussions, this well-researched and well-written article by TMC's Brendan Read makes for interesting reading.

Here is an excerpt:

Tony Marsh, for the Nortel Retirees Protection Committee, told TMCnet that Nortel's Canadian pension liability is over $2 billion but is only 69 percent funded. There are no national pension guarantee funds in Canada unlike in the United States and the United Kingdom. There is only the Ontario program, the Ontario Pension Benefit Guarantee Fund.

"The agreements with Ericsson, Avaya (News - Alert), and probably the buyers of Nortel's remaining assets will absolve them of the pension liabilities, while the proceeds from the sales will be held in escrow until the sales are finalized," Marsh told TMCnet. "The question then becomes who gets what. The American and British governments staked their claims over the proceeds, but we have heard nothing from ours, which causes us to worry."

Unfortunately for the 17,500 Canadian Nortel retirees, provincial government decisions to give the ailing auto sector funding 'holidays' had led to the PBGF being depleted.

Even when fully funded it only guarantees up to the first $12,000 per pensioner per year.

In contrast for example the PBGC will pay a maximum guaranteed amount of $54,000 for a 65-year-old American Nortel retiree. There are some 23,000 U.S. Nortel employees and retirees. The fund says the Nortel Networks Retirement Income Plan is 58 percent funded, with assets of $716 million to cover benefit liabilities of $1.23 billion, according to PBGC estimates. The agency says it expects to cover the entire $514 million shortfall.

There is a once in a lifetime opportunity ahead of us as the government prepares to spend unprecedented amounts of money for a variety of initiatives. The reality is that a small percentage of companies are doing most of the selling and the government is looking for more companies to do business with in order to increase diversity and share the wealth.

Are you getting a piece of this pie? Are you knowledgeable enough about government purchases so you can benefit from this market? Do you have products the government could use but feel you aren't selling enough of them to municipalities and federal agencies?

The government will need a lot of everything from tractors to computers to networking gear to mobile devices. For better or worse it will be a bottomless pit of spending for a long while.

The way I look at it, since we are all going to be burdened with the tax debt and interest payments on this spending we may as well make some money so we can pay the taxes we will face in the future.

In order to help my listeners sell more to the fastest growing spender in the world, I conducted a podcast interview with Scott Orbach (pictured) President, CEO and Founder of EZGSA, a company devoted to helping its customers win a share of this ever-growing market.

I hope you find it useful.

I spent a solid week in Silicon Valley and as I wrap up my trip and reflect back on the companies I met with I was pretty happy to see a good deal of optimism from the communications and technology executives I met with. Some areas of growth are the usual spaces such as products which support broadband growth and wireless backhaul.

For the companies not in those spaces there seems to be more optimism coming from companies which are not the premium players in their markets. The so-called value players seem to be attracting more interest as budgets have tightened.

Another trend which I haven't seen in a while is a fear of Microsoft on a scale I have not encountered in the past. It seems the company - according to competitors is being super-aggressive and in their words looking to dominate new/existing markets and stamp out competition. This concern came from companies of various sizes and even undisputed leaders in their spaces.

There also seems to be record interest in TMC's ITEXPO taking place September 1-3^rd 2009 in Los Angeles. Many this week have commented regarding how many people in the communications and tech spaces are already planning to go to the show. I am looking forward to meeting with many industry players in just over a month at the show.

While the media business in general has been like so many other industries such as financial and real estate - meaning lots of doom and gloom, I am happy to report TMC is hiring to fill new positions and looking for new people as well. We just hired three new professionals in our sales group and expect to add more people this year.

You may recall I mentioned we were looking last month.

While print publications have seen advertising decline and we should know as we publish four magazines - we have positioned ourselves for the day when marketing moved to the web since the nineties.

A product we launched back then - online communities has now become one of our most successful products and in Q1 of this year our Global Online Communities grew in revenue by 50%.

We also saw record attendance growth at ITEXPO earlier this year and our customers continue to tell us TMC's solutions are some of the most cost-effective marketing and community building products they can find anywhere.

You have no heard me say how now is the time to reinvest in your company and how the organizations which make it through this slowdown will come out the other end in a much better position. We are putting our money where our mouths are and you will see rapid expansion from TMC in the years to come.

In addition, I truly expect this expansion to significantly benefit all our existing customers and we are constantly being mindful of the interests of our existing readers, sponsors and contributors.

There is much more to come but for now here is the news on the three new positions which were just filled.

I know we are in a recession and everything is supposed to be gloom and doom, etc. but please indulge me as I remind many of you just how important it is in these tough times to get new customers.

It is for this reason I feel compelled to remind you ITEXPO has become the world's communications conference - the place you need to go to find new products and services. As a result, vendors/exhibitors were thrilled with ITEXPO in Miami this past January.
 

We have crafted ITEXPO from the beginning to appeal to buyers - it has always been a show where they can find the solutions they can implement today.

And as communications technologies have shown themselves to make companies more efficient and productive while saving them money, ITEXPO naturally became the gathering place for decision-makers around the globe who want to buy products and services.

Of course I am biased so if you want to see photos from the last show you can check them out here. The video below offers more of the experience and captures the energy and buyers while showing you how exhibitors fared this very year - in their own words.

I look forward to welcoming the entire communications industry at our next event September 1-3, 2009 in Los Angeles.

BTW: This video is a must watch by corporate execs that haven't been to ITEXPO recently and are SURE no one goes to shows and have cut budgets accordingly. If you are in this category please click this link as well.

Our attendee numbers are starting strong once again and as always ITEXPO will be one of the best if not the best communications event of the year - attracting big numbers of quality decision-makers in numerous markets.

There is nothing that builds a resume more like an award and if you are a developer, you definitely want to keep an eye on the new Dialogic Innovator Award contest which will not only give you some great bragging rights, you could win some prizes as well.


Dialogic was nice enough to ask me to be one of the judges in fact and I am looking forward to being part of this program. Winners get a free one-year service and support contract, a $5,000 credit towards future Dialogic products, t-shirts, press releases and an Innovator logo which I imagine can be invaluable in boosting a company's marketing efforts.

Sure it isn't a $75,000 motorcycle - which makes a great gift for your favorite blogger by the way, but hey, times are tough.

The catch? None really - you have to apply of course and Dialogic wants to also take a moment to invite you to participate in the Dialogic Exchange Network while they have your attention.

At one point in my career I was a programmer and I wish I had the time to participate in this contest. If I did, I would write an app that taps into all my social networks and then monitors my cell phone's GPS to determine when I am in the car. When I am driving, I would want it to call me every 15 minutes and update me on what's happening with my friends and relatives. I would want my news alerts tapped as well in case there is breaking news I need to know about.

Oh and of course I would want WAV file to social networking integration in this app so I could speak and have the files live on the net with links from Twitter, etc.

But that's just me and you don't need to do what I said to win. It wouldn't hurt of course. You have until September 30^th 2009 to apply so open a new window right now and get started. Good luck!