Mashup* Manchester will kick off on 18th October 2007 at Sun Microsystems in Sale, South Manchester with a high level discussion and networking evening themed ‘Web 2.0’. We want to bring together all the innovators, investors, enterprises and media organisations involved in Web 2.0 in the North under the theme of Mashup* Manchester. This event is jointly organised by ebdex (Manchester) and Mashup (Simon Grice).

Speakers

Speaker 1: David Terrar of Blognation and D Squared C

David heads up D Squared C, a consulting firm which advises on the application of web 2.0 and social media tools to business, as well as providing web based solutions for accounting, collaboration, content and web publishing. In addition he is the editor for blognation Enterprise, reporting on enterprise and SME technology innovations and start-ups, as well as related people and events in the UK and Europe.

David has been in the software business for over 20 years. Following an Applied Physics degree at UCL, he spent 9 years with IBM. He then performed director and senior manager roles at Cyberaid, CSI, IMI/Brook Street Computers, Interactive, DataWorks, Indus, Science Systems and CODA. David writes the Business Two Zero blog and is a member of the Enterprise Irregulars and Social Media Collective blogging groups.

Speaker 2: Simon Grice of etribes, mashup and testcard.tv

Simon is the Founder & Executive Chairman of Midentity Limited which owns and operates the etribes service. Simon started my career in 1991 when he worked at CERN in Geneva with members of the team who built the first web servers and browsers. Since then he has founded/co-founded a number of successful businesses including PersonalMail (Europe’s first web based emailed company), Netpoll, etribes and more recently Midentity.

Speaker 3 – Lee Strafford of Plus.Net fame and Project Sahara

 

According to Ian Spence, Analyst, Robert W. Baird: “As CEO at PlusNet, Lee created a unique business in the broadband space – profitable! Under Lee?s stewardship, the company grew from nothing to a ?100m company before it was sold to BT last year. In doing so, Lee has many friends in the City. Lee understood from the start that making money in broadband was about low cost of operation and high customer satisfaction and is was these guiding principles never changed regardless of market ups and downs. Lee?s qualities as a business leader are extremely rare. He has the ability to not only have a vision but also understands the busines process required yo make that vision a reality. Furthermore, he sticks to his vision whilst others in the market may lose confidence – ultimately he is proven right.” 

Lee will speak about the technology platform for Project Sahara

Moderator

Manoj has now turn around ebdex to become a niche consultancy specialising in EIPP (e-invoicing) and supply chain finance, providing corporate and vendor advisory and vendor analysis services in addition to business advisory for startups and early stage businesses. Manoj has also teamed up with Rhys Jones and founders of Ixis to bring edocr, which can be best described as “Making business document interactivity a reality”. Manoj also runs OpenCoffee Manchester, a relaxed version of NW StartUp 2.0 events on every 4th Tuesday of the month, and blogs at http://www.manojranaweera.com.

Manoj is very much interested in building a portfolio of startups. He is interested in projects where he could add value through leadership, business planning and execution, market entry and channel development.

Case Studies

Case Study 1: NetVibes

Netvibes pioneered the personalized startpage, an alternative to traditional Web portals. With millions of users in more than 150 countries, Netvibes lets individuals assemble all in one place their favorite websites, blogs, email accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts, widgets, and everything else they enjoy on the Web. Founded in 2005 by Tariq Krim, Netvibes has offices in Paris, London and San Francisco.

Case study 2: edocr

edocr allows business documents such as press releases, white papers, case studies, product updates, brochures, analyst reports, etc (any .doc and .pdf) to be interacted within the business community. The business-social interaction allows publishing companies to obtain valuable information on readership whilst readers have an easier way to interact with publishers as well as easily find documents of interest.

edocr can be used in many ways, e.g. simply as a way to embed documents on to your blog or to run a marketing campaign on a product launch. The value additions will become obvious as the traffic improves as well as the number of uploaded documents and readership increase.

Case Study 3: meecard

Meecard is a snippet of youness online, giving people an instant introduction to who you are. It pulls together your multiple virtual identities, repackages them into a highly customisable ‘card’, and then helps you publish it on the Web, in email and on business cards. Meecard also features powerful people search, helping potentially interesting contacts or clients to discover you. On the cusp of its first release, Meecard has already won ‘Most Innovative New App’ at Barcamp, a popular grassroots event.

Programme

Programme:

6:15pm Doors open & networking
7:15pm Speeches & Case Studies
8:15pm Panel Discussion
9:00pm Networking

Venue

Sun Microsystems

City Gate
Cross Street
Sale
M33 7JF (click here for map)

Cost:

£25 – Please get in touch with Manoj Ranaweera if your circumstances warrant a discount.

Registration

Please visit MashupEvents to register.