Tech in the New Year: #GartnerSym Flashbacks and Predictions

The new year is set to bring new(er) opportunities in tech. One of our first stops to exchange thoughts on tech trends in 2013 and beyond was the 2012 Gartner Symposium & IT Expo, where fellow IT and tech professionals took a look at the future of Big Data and the shape of things to come. In this video with Rich Wadsworth, our Vice President of Business Development, we discuss some of what he learned at the latest Gartner event...

3 Startup PR Lessons from Blackberry 10

It’s no secret. Research in Motion (RIM), creators of the once-dominant Blackberry has been floundering in the modern mobile industry. Saturday, they’ll launch Blackberry 10 - a product that will not only determine the fate of an industry giant, but offers three critical lessons for startups. Lesson 1 – Know when to Pivot In a way, RIM is like Apple. They dominated due to a closed, secure ecosystem combining hardware and an OS which fit perfectly into the enterprise. But...

ITXPO: 5 days of observations

Hello Gartner Symposium, so nice to see you. While it has been 10 or 12 years since I last attended Gartner’s biggest showcase event of the year, and arguably the IT world’s most ballyhooed annual event, the lasting impression I have is that the event is much the same (in a good way) as it was in the early 2000s, just bigger. Much bigger! I spoke with several CIOs and IT leaders over the last several days who told me...

Gartner Symposium isn't just about IT

While the annual Gartner Symposium/ITXPO 2013 is a great opportunity for CIO’s to network with one another and learn about technology initiatives for the upcoming year, among its 12,000 attendees you will also find a small group of Analyst Relations professionals. The annual event is a perfect time for these AR representatives to congregate with one another and discuss their relationships with one of the largest influencer groups in their space. Embracing this idea, Gartner holds a special AR Forum...

What Makes Austin Perfect for Tech? Austinites Speak Out! #LPPOH

This week is the week! Our LPP Austin Open House is this Thursday, and we're looking forward to seeing LPP alumni, LPP clients, high-tech professionals and Austin-area tech influencers gather under our brand new roof on West 6th Street. Not only is our space more decked out, but we're stepping up our game to make sure our guests get the chance to participate in some fun activities (one of which may or may not involve a bingo-scavenger hunt hybrid), pose...

Sky’s the limit for 2012 Gartner Symposium

Cloud. That would be the one word summing up the main theme at Gartner Symposium/ITXPO 2013 taking place this week in Orlando. Cloud rules the show this year across three areas of focus: mobile, social media and Big Data. The analyst firm’s largest event of the year, and arguably the show that most in the IT ecosystem look to as the most trend setting and informative conference for the year ahead, began Sunday with Monday being the day of keynote...

What Makes Tech PR So Unique? The Pros Speak Out! #LPPOH

Our LPP Austin Open House is next week, but we have been celebrating the high-tech industry and tech PR all week long on the #LPPOH Twitter hashtag. But no one knows the field more than those of us who live and breathe tech 24/7 – at the office, on our mobiles while we wait for the train, on our tablets while we wait for dinner to pop out of the microwave oven, and some of us even in our sleep....

Austin’s Tech Scene: A Vintage–wearing Hipster with an Old Soul

There is no denying that startups and hipsters are “so hot” right now. And while Austin is certainly a trendy city, its roots are far deeper than they seem to go when it comes to tech. Austin is home to many of our clients including CleanFUEL USA, LANDesk, Lumension, National Instruments, RADVISION (Avaya), Scuderi Group and Skyonic. Moreover, the city’s tech core (pun intended) is comprised of chip makers like Freescale (client!), Samsung, AMD and 3M. You may have heard...

Big Bird for President - Tech Bloggers, Twitter and a Presidential Debate

Twitter Steals the Show During First Presidential Debate What happens when you mix technology bloggers, a Presidential debate and Twitter? Big Bird becomes a political figure (hilariously). How? Combine one mention of cutting PBS’ funding, a direct shout-out from Mitt Romney to our favorite oversized, avian childhood memory and 135,332 tweets per minute. Last night’s Presidential debate between President Barack Obama (@barackobama) and Mitt Romney (@mittromney) was the most tweeted live political event in history, amassing 10.3 million tweets in...

The Big Questions Hiding Behind Google’s PR Stunts

The late – and forgive my enthusiastic cliché – very great Steve Jobs once told Google founder Larry Page to “Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It's now all over the map. What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest because they're dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft.” Years later, I can’t help but agree more than ever before. Self-driving cars, “Project Glass”, Android, Chrome, Google+,...