An informal technology and communications road-map for Birmingham to lead a regional ecosystem among the Magic City, Nashville and Huntsville.

1. Thoughts on a Common
Information Campaign
among Leading Innovation
Stake-holders in
Birmingham, Alabama

2. Presentation Slides
(23 slides)

3. Analysis of Current Environment in Birmingham
1. University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) has $454 million of
Research and Development (R&D)
2. One hundred, four (104) companies within Innovation Depot
3. IGNITE Working Space embedded within Innovation Depot;
Innovation Lab at UAB for collaboration and consulting
4. Velocity Accelerator affiliated with Innovation Depot with nine
companies currently sponsored
5. Almost five thousand angel investors around the U.S. interested
in investing in Alabama

4. BIRMINGHAM ‘techo-system’
Business
Support
from iLab
Innovation
Depot as
Incubator
Velocity
Accelerator
IGNITE
Working
Space and
Innovation Lab
N
Domestic and
international
investors

5. Basic Aims of Key Stake-holders in Birmingham
1. Innovation Depot provides collaboration to start-ups through
UAB’s Collat Business School; housed in Innovation Depot and
directly linked to UAB crowdfunding platform
2. Innovation Depot spear-heading creation of Birmingham
ecosystem, known as Innovation District with an investment
multiplier of 10x on a base approaching $150 million
3. IGNITE Accelerator sponsored by Innovation Depot, starting
operations in 2016
4. Other NGOs and government entities, led by Women Who
Code, Alabama Education Foundation and Venture for America
supporting as Private-Public Partnerships

6. U.S. Counter-insurgency Strategy Framework:
End State = desired and sustainable result

Strategy = the route to success

Tactics = a detailed implementation map
Shape (current state)  Clear (enemies)  Hold (consolidate
gains on the ground)  Build (reach the End State)

Activities = assigned and specific tasks

7. Strategy Framework applied to Birmingham:
End State = Birmingham as permanent node in a tech ‘AXIS’
with global reach of Nashville-Huntsville-Birmingham.

Strategy = 1. new sources of funds and talent
 2. extend awareness of AXIS globally
Tactics = digital / physical networks within and beyond AXIS
 digital platform  self-funding  advocacy  initiatives
Activities = to be determined

8. POSSIBLE BIRMINGHAM ECOSYSTEM
Innate Advantages of Birmingham:
N
1. Within three hours of Nashville (medical technology) and
ninety minutes of Huntsville (aerospace)
2. UAB’s educated talent in medical technology and engineering
3. #1 city for millennial entrepreneurs
4. Sister cities in Japan and China
5. Triple helix among UAB, Innovation Depot (and investors on
its Board) and municipal incentives already in place
6. Crowdfunding and tech transfer platforms already in place

9. Counter-insurgency (COIN) Framework for Birmingham:
End State = Birmingham as Anchor to Tech AXIS with
Nashville and Huntsville
Advantages of Birmingham
1. Key trade intersection in Southeast
2. Graduating talent feeding into Innovation Lab / Depot
3. Strong investment ties with Atlanta
4. Strong engineering and tech ties with Huntsville
5. Improving intellectual infrastructure with NGOs

10. Counter-insurgency Framework for Birmingham:
Strategy = 1. international diversification of funding
2. attracting new and refined talent
Constraints to overcome
1. Many cities already well-advanced and
ahead of Birmingham
2. Limited cross-fertilization among stake-
holders
3. Viewed as declining city; memories of ‘63
4. Need to tighten ties with ten tech hubs
within five hundred miles

11. COIN Framework: Tactics – global digital network
Preliminary elements for Birmingham
1. shape  create unified digital platform in immediate term
2. clear  eliminate institutional frictions in short term
3. hold  integrate tax and investment incentives in medium term
4. consolidate  investment agreements with E.U. et al. in long-term

12. COIN Framework: Birmingham To-Do List
Activities = to be determined and to include, but not be
limited to, the following (as examples)
1. Negotiate cross-funding and talent management agreements
with Huntsville and Nashville
2. Common web-site optimized for searches by analysts employed
by U.S. and non-U.S. investment funds
3. Establish investment and talent links with Austin (TX), the
Research Triangle (NC), San Diego (CA) and Atlanta (GA)
4. Delegations to visit Israël, Singapore, U.A.E., Stockholm et al.

13. Why a Global Agency (Zeekee or Context A3)?
1.Global relationships with Disney, DHL et al. to refine capacity
2.Senior partnership positions with GOOGLE, MicroSoft, Hub-Spot et
al. – top four digital brands sought out XXX
3.Global professional network to disseminate lessons-learned
4.Two thousand digital consultants in more than eighty countries
5.Centers of excellence across the United States with best practices
6.Linked with centers in other countries handling other languages
7.Six phase XXX digital life cycle – intelligence, analytics, campaign
strategy, implementation, performance measurement and apply
lessons-learned

14. Shape
Intelligence
single footprint
Optimize
site
Clear
mapping strategy
Content
dissemination
engagement
brand
Social MediaBuild
Measure / ManageEnd-state
Maslow comes to Birmingham
Hold

15. Principal Products
Web-site
(optimization);
Digital Branding
(campaigns); and,
Communications
(intelligence)
Franchisee
XXX Partners: Google;
HootSuite; Microsoft;
HubSpot, Adobe, SEMRush,
ReachLocal et al.
Global Relationships:
BMW, DHL, Disney
International Relationships:
Toyota, National Science &
Technology Council (MX) et al.
Regional Center of
Excellence in Atlanta
Customer
XXX

16. N.G.O.
NGO Comms Platform
General Partners:
[1] City Government
[2] Women Who Code
[3] Venture for America
[4] UAB
Managing Partner
Birmingham Business
Alliance?
Administrator
Innovation Depot?

17. NGO
• Web-Site (optimization)
• Digital Branding (campaigns)
• Communications (intelligence)

18. Capital-
raising
vehicle
$$$
¥£
€€€
Technology
Transfer
Identify and attract
entrepreneurs
Diversify funding sources
Valuations, licensing,
investment banking
for spin-outs, etc.
N.G.O.
Platform

19. Advantages of Web-Site Optimization:
1. 90% percent of users never go beyond page-1 of results
2. More than 80% of transactions involve on-line activity along the way
3. Inter-net as a virtual pool of early adopters
Attract investors
and entrepreneurs

20. Thoughts on Optimization
( a / k / a SEO):
1. Only a minimum on-line presence
2. Requires about a third of time and
resources of platform
3. Only practicable when executed in
terms tailored to the audience
4. Engaging content on common site
accruing to individual participants
to extend their particular reach

21. Funding Round:
(A-Round, angel, etc.)
Advantages of Digital Fund-raising:
1. Rapid visibility in a target investor audience
2. Formulate a message tailored to that audience
3. This channel could be managed by Innovation Depot / iLab

22. Thoughts on a Digital Campaign
as the heart of virtual marketing:
1. Represents half of the overall
digital effort
2. Aligning Birmingham’s story on
her terms within the web-lexicon
3. Integrating strong content into
digital channels to articulate
strong calls to action
4. At least a year required to gauge
success or failure of penetration

23. Investor or
Corporate
Acquiror
Advantages of Targeted Communications:
1. Extending reach of the name-in-market
2. Translating value propositions and assets into local keywords
3. Intelligence gleaned on similar transactions, potential buyers
and other sellers to value entreprise
Final Exit or
Take-out Round

24. Thoughts of Digital Communications
(i.e., knowledge, intelligence and
lessons-learned):
1. Extract experience, strength and hope
from failed entreprises or initiatives
2. Recycle said information and talent
into re-pivots or wholly new start-ups
3. Apply lessons-learned from analytics
and performance measurement for
continuous improvement of platform
and NGO execution

25. CONCLUSIONS
1. The NGO or Public-Private Partnership designed to use digital
marketing platform to mobilize / monetize inert intellectual capital
2. State-of-the-discipline web-site to establish a name-in-market of
Birmingham, her key institutions and the ‘AXIS’
3. Attract high-impact start-ups to Birmingham, Huntsville or Nashville
4. Facilitate research of analysts outside the region seeking otherwise
‘overlooked’ opportunities in other (emerging) markets
5. Hybrid angel-funding / crowdfunding seed fund with partners or
participants including iLab, Southern Research, Innovation Depot,
Launch-Tennessee, UAB-Huntsville, Vanderbilt, etc.

26. Reference
Slides

27. Challenges facing the Birmingham
Regional Ecosystem (B-H-N)
1. Uneven technological progress among and between
Birmingham, Huntsville and Nashville
2. Limited venture capital community in Birmingham
3. Sluggish U.S. economy for last eight years
4. Limited communications among the three cities
5. Necessity of revising fixed perceptions
6. Emergent aversion to globalism in national politics

28. Forget about the ‘next Silicon Valley’; focus on emergence
of three-to-six specialized tech hubs; frequently cited
possibilities do not mention Alabama or Tennessee.

29. Summaries Overall Marketing Content Accessibility Technology
MIND Hub
Angel Ventures
Endeavor
BIT Centre
HUB STN
Entidad url
Clasificación
(20 millones)
Cambio
trimestral
INADEM www.inadem.gob.mx
26,718  34%
Endeavor www.endeavor.org.mx
268,798  30%
Angel Ventures angelventuresmexico.com
490,581  70%
Mind-Hub mind-hub.com
614,184  800%
Hub STN www.hubstn.com
1,327,856  200%
BIT Centre bitcenter.mx
13,048,675  58%

30. Pero
México
no
podrá
hacerlo
por sí
mismo
País (en pesos) México Los U.S.A. Canadá
Población 118 millones 315 millones 34 millones
P.I.B.
MXN 23.100
billones
MXN 209
billones
MXN 17.100
billones
P.I.B. por capita MXN 200.000 MXN 660.000 MXN 540.000
% I+D+i/P.I.B. 0.5% 2.8% 1.6%
I+D+i por capita 675 16.000 MXN 8.700
OTRAS REGIONES Población % I+D+i I+D+i por capita
Escandinavia 26 millones 2.7% MXN 13.250
BeNeLux 29 millones 1.6% MXN 8.250
OTROS PAÍSES Población % I+D+i I+D+I por capita
Israël 9-13 millones 4.2% MXN 14.500
Suecia 9 millones 3.8% MXN 15.000
Corea del Sur 49 millones 3.8% MXN 13.900
Japón 127 millones 3.7% MXN 15.750
Finlandia 5 millones 3.6% MXN 14.500
Dinamarca 6 millones 3.0% MXN 11.500
Suiza 9 millones 2.9% MXN 12.000
Alemania 82 millones 2.3% MXN 10.750
El U.K. 63 millones 1.7% MXN 7.500

31. While Mexico (118 million people) spends
approximately $10 billion on RD&I…
1.Taiwan (23 million people) spends roughly $22 billion
2.Sweden (nine million) also spends some $22 billion
3.Switzerland (nine million) spends more than $15 billion
4.Israël (9-13 million) spends about $13 billion
5.The Netherlands(17 million) spend MXN $12 billion
Five countries with 60% of the Mexican population allocate
eight times the resources invested by Mexico.

32. Reasons why autarchy may sound seductive but
could be harmful…
1.Black swans do fly and they drop, they drop BIG
2.Birmingham has already lived through dislocation brought on
by leap-frogging technologies and slow reactions
3.Many of the current and past contributors to Silicon Valley
were not born in the United States but in emerging countries
like China, India and Mexico
4.Birmingham and the region must not only attract investors but
also inventors for open innovation and swarm-funding
5.Talent inflows will mitigate brain-drains

33. Little support from Tijuana municipal
government for developing an eco-system:
• Less than 1% of the city budget allocated to RD&I while
far more subsidies go to sweat shops (maquiladoras)
• Absence of creative policy proposals like a tax credit of
5% (i.e., the difference between national and border sales
taxes) for investments to retro-fit sweat-shops with new
technologies developed by local engineers

34. Talking Points
for Presentation

35. NOTES: Slide #2
Analysis of Current Environment in Birmingham
Pillars of Innovation in Birmingham:
1.Innovation Depot as a large incubator, sponsor and venue of other
initiatives aimed at tech start-ups
2.IGNITE work-space of open innovation as an idea generator housed in
the Innovation Depot
3.Innovation Lab providing start-up support and consulting out of
UAB’s B-school through Innovation Depot (and tied in with UAB
crowdfunding platform)
4.Velocity Accelerator also housed in the Innovation Depot

36. NOTES: Slide #5
U.S. Counter-insurgency Strategy Framework:
Strategy based on the simplified framework of U.S. Army in Iraq and
Afghanistan as applied (by me) in counter-insurgency press:
Tasks and activities drive tactics, which remain both fluid and aligned with
the larger strategy to achieve a victorious end-state.
The shape-clear-hold-build tactical framework was specific to Iraq; the
tactical array includes:
Shape, for collecting intelligence and influencing local attitudes and context
Clear, for eliminating the enemy and clearing away immediate obstacles
Hold, for stabilizing local conditions and securing the population
Build, for constructing clinics, hospitals, infrastructure, business centers

37. NOTES: Slide #6
Strategy Framework applied to Birmingham:
How this framework can apply to Birmingham or the AXIS (tech alliance of Birmingham, Huntsville and
Nashville):
End State: one of the five or six future global tech hubs / municipal networks for mechatronics, med-tech
and fin-tech.
Strategy: reach out to, and access, new pools of talent and resources and, through the communications
platform, attract a higher quality of visitor who to be more deeply engaged with individual sites embedded
in the platform.
Tactics: an optimized web site (bundling the ancillary sites of start-ups) to shape the context of Birmingham
and the AXIS in the realm of cyberspace; retaining local wealth amassed in Nashville and Birmingham to
clear away funding short-falls; hold onto funding sources through initiatives by allying with complementary
ecosystems around the world; as well as, build the AXIS as a self-sustaining tech region.
Activities: to be determined over time but to include tasks like sending delegations to Singapore, the Middle
East and Scandinavia; creating a talent bank to recycled capable entrepreneurs, etc.
NOTE: This strategy will be risky since Birmingham and the AXIS will be marketing a concept and regional
value proposition rather than specific products or services.

38. NOTES: Slide #7
Innate Advantages of Birmingham:
N
Current advantages of Birmingham and the Birmingham-Huntsville-
Nashville Axis (AXIS):
1.Active start-up community through UAB, Innovation (i)Depot et al.
2.Comparative economic advantages in aerospace (Huntsville) and
healthcare (Nashville)
3.Birmingham as a transportation hub in the Southeast
4.High quality of life in Birmingham with two of the top-fifty suburbs in
the U.S. (Vestavia Hills and Mountain Brook) and selected as the city
most friendly to millennial entrepreneurs in 2015 by Thumbtack
Business Friendliness Survey

39. NOTES: Slide #8; COIN Framework for Birmingham:
End State = Birmingham as Anchor to Tech AXIS with
Nashville and Huntsville
While the sentiment is running high against NAFTA and the TPP, the closed economy that made
Birmingham rich in basic manufacturing will not likely return. The city will also have to prepare for
possible Black Swan events as she did not when the steel and banking industries collapsed. One
double-whammy could be the advent of national health care with an accent put on relatively low-
margin general practice medicine (impact on higher-end med-tech), together with the withdrawal
of Airbus, Honda, et al. following renewed protectionism and targeted policies for U.S. ‘infant
industries’.
The formation of the AXIS can mitigate Black Swan events by providing a bigger economic base to
absorb them; additionally, such an AXIS will aid in the negotiating position of each city vis à vis
Atlanta, Austin, NYC, Chicago, California, et al. Furthermore, the AXIS can diversify its base
through alliances with smaller, tech-rich countries like Sweden, Dubai, Taiwan et al. by using its
privileged position inside the U.S. to make foreign-direct investment easier. The competitive
position of the AXIS, however, begs the possible necessity of a partnership with Atlanta which
runs the risk of swallowing up Birmingham’s economy.

40. NOTES: Slide #9; COIN Framework - Strategy
The Project or Mission Charter lays out the vision underlying the initiative as well as the specific end state;
the road-map of strategy; identification of tactics; and, at least, some notion of activities to gauge resource
requirements and suggest a ‘work break-down structure’. Each phase of the military framework entails a
trade-off between an unknowable vision and the known nuts-&-bolts, or qualitative vision versus granular
operations. No phase should be 100% one way or the other.
The vision or mission statement intends to engage all participants at all levels – end state, strategy, tactics
and activities – to place the mission ahead of personalities. While this vision statement is fairly broad,
together with the defined end state, it ought properly to limit the scope of the initiative. When this vision
is too broadly defined, the phenomenon of mission-creep or scope-creep occurs, often undercutting the
team effort by failing to obtain specified deliverables or generating additional costs with unexpected
delays.
• The vision statement answers the ‘why’ question of seeking a certain end-state; 90% vision and 10%
operations
• Reaching the end state is the ‘where’ question; 75% vision and 25% operations
• The strategy asks the ‘how’ question; 60% vision and 40% operations
• Identifying tactics remains the ‘what’ question; 35% vision and 65% operations
• Scheduled activities define the answer to the ‘when’ question through the work break-down structure;
15% vision and 85% operations.

41. NOTES: Slide #10; COIN Framework: Tactics
Ironically, formulating a consensus-supported vision statement may prove to be the
most time-consuming stage due to the negotiations preceding an integration of aims
and preferences that inevitably will diverge. If the vision statement and the larger
charter for the initiative are successfully articulated, the way forward through the
strategy and its route to implementation through the tactics should be identifiable.
Shape: the digital platform, in its basic state, gets the word out and around about
Birmingham as a key resource-node in the tri-city tech AXIS. When a user, unfamiliar
with the Magic City or the Magic AXIS enters the site and seeks out investment
opportunities, (s)he will be engaged by the time (s)he clicks through to the specific site
of a start-up. While start-ups need the traction of digital accessibility, they often lack
the time to execute. The platform does that for them.

42. NOTES: Slide #10; COIN Framework: Tactics (continued)
Clear. In the case of Birmingham, there are not likely to be many impediments to clear away since the city is already
esteemed as a top destination for millennial entrepreneurs. Creating cross-(state) border alliances will require
clearing away regulatory disconnects (e.g., different tax rates, discordant incentive programs, etc.). The
communications platform will transmit these changes to the wider inter-net for consumption by (typically junior)
analysts working for investment funds and tasked with scouting out possibilities.
Hold. Clearing away the disconnects and, perhaps, instituting incentives in Huntsville and / or Nashville will go a long
way toward consolidating the gains won by the AXIS and conferred by the remaining reforms in Birmingham herself.
The communications platform will engage targeted audiences / consumers in diverse settings by relaying success
stories, news and direct engagement through the social media, primarily Linked-In, Facebook, Twitter, GOOGLE+,
Reddit, Quora, and lesser-known but more relevant professional sites frequented by investors in medical and
aerospace start-ups.
Build. Birmingham has done much of this phase already. There likely is building to do within the AXIS, if one takes
shape. ‘Building’ means more than a final build-out of the communications platform to establish a name-in-market. It
will entail building on that base toward a digital brand through events around the world to make people in various
tech regions aware of Birmingham (and of the AXIS) as a great partner in ‘driven technologies’ (i.e., those driven by
data, medical and aerospace).

43. NOTES: Slide #11; COIN Framework: Activities
Activities = to be determined
The tactics will define the activities. For example, the Innovation Depot
and Launch Tennessee could assume the roles of managing partners to lead
the due-diligence of new funding rounds or investments as well as
coordinate various classes of investors (angel, venture capital, private
equity, crowdfunded, etc.). Once crowdfunding has its first big blow-up – a
“can’t miss” that collapses – many ‘day-traders’ will exit that arena. For
those who remain, however, the AXIS will need to provide assurance of
having inside partners who are looking out for the interests of those loyal
outside participants.

44. NOTES: Slide #12; Why a Global Agency
It should come as no-surprise that I (or any other in this oversight role) would not be the ‘techie-in-chief’ but
someone nimble and diplomatic enough to balance out strong personalities and clashing visions. What the
effort does need is a partner in the digital domain capable of scaling the effort across audiences and time
zones, necessitating reliance upon on-the-ground counterparts for creating the content most conducive to
local success. This is what I sought to do in Tijuana.
1.XXX (franchisor): best practices accumulated over two decades that can scale up to a global audience or
down to a local audience; two of the top four brands in the world – MicroSoft and GOOGLE – came to WSI.
2.XXX-Atlanta / XXX-México / XXX-UAE, etc.: proven expertise in partnering with scientific leaders and
leading large or middle market companies.
3.XXX McDigital: my franchise (R.l.P.) among almost 2,000 other consultants across the world in devising
workable solutions for any type of customer.
Three basic areas: search engine optimization (SEO; of declining importance); targeted communications /
advertising campaigns, often in other languages); and information gathering (to improve market penetration
and to gather the data necessary to conduct pre-revenue valuations for start-ups ready for funding).

45. NOTES: Slides 13 - 15; Maslow Digital Platform
The product concept of ‘Adaptive SEO’ is search engine optimization tailored to be smart-phone friendly as
well as integrating the interactive power of social media. These features draw in potential investors or gain
market intel for valuations. The product schema aligns with the Maslow pyramidal hierarchy of needs,
providing the essence of current digital (i.e., guerilla) marketing.
Hello, Dr Maslow! How the levels of competence and reach fit together.
SEO is the absolute minimum for survival.
Social Media are the mastery of interactions and recognition for it among peers.
Data accumulation and analysis represent the attainment of universal recognition from successful
establishment of a name in the market and attendant pricing-power.
As discussed elsewhere, the communications platform would either be sponsored by one entity (e.g., the
Innovation Depot) as a Trustee for the other contributing stakeholders, to avoid complication, or as public-
private partnership or NGO. Every stakeholder should make a financial contribution to signal singleness and
seriousness of purpose. One incidental longer-term benefit of such a partnership would be to cement the
‘triple-helix’ (of business, academia and government) common to most successful tech hubs (Silicon Valley,
Route 128, Scandinavia, etc.).

46. NOTES: Slide #16
My DREAM role throughout this creative fracas?
• My dedication to ensure, at the very least, that Birmingham’s compelling message gets out and
around the world in authentic terms (your narrative, not mine).
• A low personal profile for me to trouble-shoot; the stage will be cluttered already and different
people will get the spotlight at different times.
• My continuing to be me (perceptive and prickly) by asking the direct questions to get the ‘tech
express’ back on the rails again.
• Daily work to elevate discreetly the profile of key players of the Birmingham ecosystem and the
wider AXIS at the time of most instrumental impact; a / k / a being the spotlight jockey.
• My making sure that every success has a face (other than mine) and that every failure has a
reason and solution, not merely an excuse.
It will be important to remind people that the integration of participants’ content either on the
general platform, or in their particular sites linked to it, will reside with the participants. Technical
help will be available; nevertheless, you all own the platform and its contents.

47. NOTES: Slide #17
Each marketing activity, under this schema, would focus on a particular (type of)
audience.
1.Adaptive SEO would disseminate information to facilitate the attention of
entrepreneurs, inventors and investors to Birmingham and to the wider AXIS,
depending on type of technology.
2.Interactive communications campaigns would seek to turn this interest into
commitment via investment, re-location, etc.
3.Continuous improvement through market intelligence and inward analytics would
consolidate Birmingham’s presence in the market into an international brand as part of
the AXIS to mobilize the primary and initiate a secondary market.

48. NOTES: Slide #24; Conclusions – Basic Questions
BUDGET
This topic would be resolved by discussion. The budget initially proposed for Tijuana as
conservatively estimated (on the high side) at $500,000 to set the platform up and
$250,000 per year thereafter; a 25% bum-up would like apply in Birmingham. This
budget would relate only to the platform itself.
Other costs for legal documentation for setting up and NGO or private-public partnership
would be separate and, given their complexity in harmonizing Tennessee and Alabama
law, could total as much as $500,000 at the start with something like $100,000 for
maintenance thereafter. The pillar institutions – led by Innovation Depot, Launch-
Tennesse, iLab / UAB the Marshall Space Flight Center – would need to pitch in, at least,
the first 20% of a $1 million investment with fund-raising for the balance.

49. NOTES: Slide #24; Conclusions / Basic Questions (continued)
THE FOCUS ON OTHER CITIES AND COUNTRIES
What such a network seeks to do is to disseminate comparative advantages of various
hubs. For example, an entrepreneur in Birmingham wants to start a business in BIG DATA
technology targeting the Pacific Rim but not in aerospace. At the same time, an
entrepreneur in Vancouver wants to initiate a med-tech start-up. Each may have a great
idea but find him-or-herself trapped in the wrong venue.
Were Vancouver and the AXIS to be in a partnership, the Canadian entrepreneur might
find more funding in Birmingham while basing the business in Nashville. If the start-up
fails, that entrepreneur has valuable experience in a setting where (s)he can switch over
to a newer entrpreprise. Likewise, the Alabama entrepreneur might accomplish more in
Vancouver.

50. NOTES: Slide #24; Conclusions / Basic Questions (continued)
CONTENT CONTRIBUTION
By the individual institutions and start-ups marketing through the site and
communications platform. Digital marketing geeks might alter some of the language to
increase its reach through cyber-space. For example, a contributor might propose, “We
will come up with our own money at first and go from there…” The nerdsmith might
suggest an alternative, such as, “The founders will boot-strap for the alpha testing of the
product concept and then seek angel financing or crowdfunding for the initial launch to
early adopters.”
While the latter language takes significantly more words to convey the same idea, it uses
the same terms as people conducting inter-net searches for early-stage investments will
likely feed into search engines (i.e., GOOGLE, BING or BAIDU).