Midtown Business Radio Archives - Page 6 of 6

Nine Labs, Polygon, Casey Gilson, Nelson Mullins, and SoundRiver Advisors

November 18, 2014 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Nine Labs, Polygon, Casey Gilson, Nelson Mullins, and SoundRiver Advisors

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Nine Labs, Polygon, Casey Gilson, Nelson Mullins, and SoundRiver Advisors

This week we heard from experts in corporate law (workers compensation and mergers & acquisitions), web design and customer experience, and corporate executive compensation and financial planning. I hosted folks from Nine Labs, Polygon, Casey Gilson, Nelson Mullins, and SoundRiver Advisors.

J. Cornelius is the President of Nine Labs, a web design and customer experience company based in Atlanta. He also started Polygon, an event space designed and dedicated to support Atlanta’s growing technology industry. Nine Labs is a user experience consultancy that helps businesses improve the look and feel of their digital technologies, making sure that a customer’s experience is useful, intuitive, and branding is maintained across the variety of digital media, mobile devices, and other user interfaces. The company will provide message content or work with their client’s internal team to optimize the way the client presents their brand to the public. Nine Labs is able to help businesses that are putting effort into making sure their customers can have a consistent experience across all digital/mobile platforms. They often encounter situations where a user’s experience on a mobile device is very different in terms of look and feel of a company’s branding, along with less-than-optimal navigation or functionality. Nine Labs’ experts are able to bring a consistent, positive experience to a company’s web visitors, regardless of technology used to access it. Polygon is an event space located in popular Atlantic Station in Midtown Atlanta that was created to provide technology companies and associations with a place to have productive networking, planning, and educational events. The space is located, laid out, and equipped with the Atlanta technology industry in mind.

Rayford Taylor is an attorney with the firm, Casey Gilson PC, admitted to practice law in Florida and Georgia. The majority of his practice is providing advice and representation to employers, insurance companies, insurance funds, and third party administrators in the defense of workers’ compensation claims, whether at trial or on appeal. Rayford also represents such entities in disputes with both Florida and Georgia state governments and regulators involving the operation of their companies and businesses. He has handled workers’ compensation cases all over Georgia and North Florida since 1990. The law firm of Casey Gilson is a firm that practices in the areas of labor law, personal injury defense, business litigation, trademark matters, patent disputes, bankruptcy cases and general litigation throughout all parts of Georgia. Rayford talked about some key areas where businesses make mistakes that can create increased exposure to workers compensation costs. He shared recommendations that employers could use to improve relations with injured employees as well as reducing risk for fraudulent behaviors.

Michael Hollingsworth is an award-winning attorney with Nelson, Mullins, Riley, and Scarborough LLP, located in Atlanta. He is a managing partner of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough’s Atlanta office, and is co-head of the Firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions Group. Mr. Hollingsworth focuses on middle-market corporate transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures. He also serves on the Firm’s Executive Committee, the governing body of seven partners who oversee firm standing committees, strategic initiatives, and firm operations. Michael represents private equity and hedge funds relative to their formation, operations and investments. He has a broad range of industry experience including food and beverage, consumer-branded products, healthcare, construction and aggregates, technology and telecommunications, media, manufacturing and distribution, and business services. Michael is also a transactional lawyer in the Firm’s multidisciplinary National Healthcare Practice Group.

Nelson Mullins provides advice and counsel in litigation, corporate, securities, finance, intellectual property, employment, government relations, regulatory, and other needs of clients ranging from private individuals to large businesses, including many publicly held companies. Nelson Mullins offers services in over 40 practice areas and as such they are able to provide expertise to a wide range of legal and business problems while offering value-added service to clients. Many Nelson Mullins clients—including growth companies, expanding local businesses, and major international companies—retain the Firm to provide all of their legal services. Other clients are national companies requiring assistance with specific regional or local legal matters. The Firm also has experience representing international companies interested in locating facilities in the Southeast. Start-up assistance for entrepreneurial endeavors, multi-action litigation defense, and representation of underwriters and investment bankers are only a few of the services that are provided by Nelson Mullins attorneys. Michael talked about how rewarding it is to become a trusted adviser for his clients as well as helping them to successfully navigate the sale of a successful business to the betterment of their financial situations.

Bo Wilkins, of SoundRiver Advisors stopped by to talk about the way their firm helps privately-owned businesses plan for generational transitions of ownership as well as preparation for sale or merger should those options be the chosen path for their clients. SoundRiver Advisors is an independent wealth management and life insurance advisory firm providing strategies to help privately held business owners invest, protect, and perpetuate their wealth. We talked about how challenging it can be for companies to retain high-performing, key executives (as well as how expensive it can be to replace them). SoundRiver Advisors is able to help the business owner develop a compensation plan that affords their key executives with a compelling pay and bonus structure along with effective investment/benefit vehicles that will optimize the tax picture of that compensation package, making it much more likely those important executives will remain in place. The firm provides certified financial and insurance experts and is a Registered Investment Advisor. SoundRiver is structured to offer their clients unbiased and untethered solutions. They avoid selling captive investment or insurance solutions. You don’t have to talk with their folks very long before you realize they are in the business of finding the best solution for each of their clients.

Special Guests:

J. Cornelius, President of Nine Labs, Founder of Polygon

President, Atlanta Web Design Group
Former VP Operations, CoffeeCup Software, Inc.
Mentor, ATDC
Creative Circus Advisory Board Member

Rayford Taylor, Attorney of Casey Gilson PC

Former VP, Stiles, Taylor, and Grace
Former General Counsel and Legislative Counsel, Florida Bar
Juris Doctor, Florida State University College of Law
Fellow, National Workers Compensation Lawyers

Michael Hollingsworth, Managing Partner, of Nelson, Mullins, Riley, & Scarborough

Juris Doctor, Samford Cumberland School of Law
Master of Laws, Taxation, University of Alabama School of Law
Member, Executive Committee, Managing Partner-Atlanta, Co-chair Mergers & Acquisitions
Recipient: BTI Client Service All-Stars (2012), Chambers & Partners (M&A), International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers, SuperLawyers (Georgia)

Bo Wilkins, Partner, SoundRiver Advisors

Former Executive Managing Director, Wealth Management, Reliance Trust Company
Former Partner, Nease, Lagana, Eden, & Culley
BA, History & German, Hampden-Sydney College
CLU – Chartered Life Underwriter; ChFC – Chartered Financial Consultant; CAP – Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy

Marketing Eye, SolTech, Cox Digital Solutions, and Pindrop Security

November 11, 2014 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Marketing Eye, SolTech, Cox Digital Solutions, and Pindrop Security

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Marketing Eye, SolTech, Cox Digital Communications, and Pindrop Security

Today, I had the opportunity to feature another four technology companies that help businesses grow and operate more efficiently. I was pleased to host Marketing Eye, SolTech, Cox Digital Solutions, and Pindrop Security. Mellissah Smith, founder and CEO of Marketing Eye brought along Veanne Smith, Vice President of SolTech, an innovative Atlanta technology company and client of Marketing Eye. One of the digital strategy experts from Cox Digital Solutions, Drew Erickson, joined us to talk about why it makes sense to work with Cox Media and their digital team to maximize ROI on investing in a digital marketing strategy. And Matt Anthony, VP of Marketing for Pindrop Security stopped by to talk about how they help companies avoid falling victim to phone fraud of a variety of types, protecting them and their customers from financial loss.

Marketing Eye is a disruptive marketing consulting firm that delivers small to medium-sized businesses with an experienced marketing team for a small, weekly fee. Their outsourced marketing solution delivers exponential growth to the companies we work with through a strategic approach and clear understanding of marketing strategy, creative, brand, lead generation, public relations, and sales and marketing automation. Marketing Eye’s model is simple; they provide businesses with a marketing manager and outsourced marketing team dedicated to ensuring that your business achieves its marketing goals. Complete with branding, graphic design, web development, search engine optimization, social media, lead generation and direct marketing expertise – Marketing Eye is the ultimate results-orientated marketing solution in Atlanta. Whether you need a marketing resource to accelerate your business growth, or a more strategic approached aligned to your business outcomes, Marketing Eye is well known for high performance, technology-driven marketing campaigns that deliver results for their clients.

SolTech is a Custom Software Development, Web Applications Services, IT Staffing and Technology Consulting Company in Atlanta, GA. The company, now in its 16th year, helps companies fulfill visions of success and goals for growth through custom software development, strategic technology consulting, system integration, application infrastructure support, and staff augmentation. Using proven, structured methodologies to ensure outstanding deliverables, SolTech provides a quality alternative to high-priced consulting firms. Their promise to their staff and clients: to be honest about their capabilities, to stay focused on core services, and to remain committed to delivering quality results. To find out more about how SolTech can turn your company’s ideas into reality now and as you grow, visit their website. The company is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Sitecore Partner and a Java certified developer.

Drew Erickson, Digital Sales Manager for WSB-TV and Cox Media Group. He consults with clients to develop a strategy for digital marketing, advertising, audience insights and lead generation programs. He’s been with Cox Media Group for over 10 years, all in digital marketing and advertising. Their staff, comprised of a team of highly-experienced digital marketing experts, work closely with their clients to determine what their goals are. They review what they have been doing to date to grow awareness of their brand, how effective those measures have been, and come up with a comprehensive set of recommendations that encompasses the variety of media types at their disposal to create a campaign that gives the greatest likelihood the brand gets its message in front of their target customers. Cox Digital Solutions takes full advantage of today’s mobile technology, enabling their customers to display ads to prospective customers based on geo-location, allowing their clients to be very specific about where and when their message is displayed. Cox Digial Solutions also leverages their role as a Google Premier Partner to take advantage of the wealth of analytics data available to them to place Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay Per Click (PPC) text and display ads that much more effectively. They combine these tactics with recommendations for improvements to their clients’ websites to insure the landing page for displayed ads provides the highest likelihood of conversion once a prospective client visits the website. As someone who has worked with the team at Cox Digital Solutions I can tell you it will quickly become apparent they are invested in your success as an advertiser investing money with them to grow your business.

Matt Anthony is the VP of Marketing for Pindrop Security. I was fortunate to link up with them via Twitter and looked into what they do. Prior to that I knew phone fraud occurs but I didn’t realize that it’s not only still going strong, it is as Matt put it, “a growth industry”. Thieves have become experts at “social engineering”, meaning they are adept at personifying an authentic customer in an effort to obtain sensitive data from a helpful call center agent. This puts any business that possesses sensitive information at risk for significant financial loss. Pindrop Security has developed technologies that enable their client businesses to determine with a high degree of accuracy that a given call to their call center is likely a fraudulent attempt to breach their system. The process of evaluating voice, originating device, and geographic location happens as quickly as 20 seconds into the call. This means Pindrop Security customers are able to terminate those calls or lock down the account that the caller is attempting to access to prevent the theft before it happens. This means that Pindrop Security clients are able to avoid significant financial losses and potential legal issues that arise when their systems are breached, allowing sensitive data to be stolen.

Special Guests:

Mellissah Smith, Managing Director/Founder of Marketing Eye

Founder/Owner, Insomnia Marketing and Communication
Founder, Marketing Eye Magazine
Author, “108 Ways to Market Your Small Business”
#2 Marketer to follow on Twitter, >47,000 followers on Twitter, >11,000 connections on LinkedIn
Hundreds of thousands of readers follow her blog

Veeanne Smith, Vice President/Founder of SolTech

Former VP, Computer Management Services/Computer Associates
Former Professional Services Manager, Computer Task Group/ctg
CS Advisory Board Member, Kennesaw State University
BS, Computer Science, Illinois State University

Drew Erickson, Digital Solutions Manager, Cox Digital Solutions/ WSB-TV

Former Owner, Drew Erickson Productions and Marketing
Former Sales Account Manager, Cox Radio
Former Digital Web Master, Cox Radio
IAB Digital Media Sales Certification, Interactive Advertising Bureau

Specialties

Custom Software Development, Technical Recruiting & Staffing, Mobile Application Development, Hosting & Hardware Support, Strategic Consulting

Lenz Marketing – Top Docs Radio

November 6, 2014 by angishields

Top Docs Radio

Lenz Marketing - Top Docs Radio

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Lenz Marketing

This week I sat down with the Vice President of Marketing for Lenz Marketing, Mr. Mike Killeen. According to the company’s website, Lenz offers clients the full suite of marketing and communication tools to grow their businesses. At Lenz, integrated marketing is the strategic and coordinated implementation of digital and traditional advertising, PR, web sites, social media, and events to achieve a stated goal. The company has been serving the Atlanta area for over 22 years. Mike talked about the fact that the firm started as a traditional marketing company, providing service to a variety of companies looking to increase community awareness of their brands. Early on their leadership saw an opportunity to help businesses within the medical community, from hospitals to physician groups.

As Mike stated, “We have evolved and refined who we are and what we do to be known best for healthcare marketing, no doubt about it. We enjoy it and find it very fulfilling. But we’ve done a lot of different things throughout our history. And we really fell that our broad set of interests is one of the reasons we’re most successful with healthcare. Because we don’t think that marketing healthcare is really that different than marketing anything else. At the end of the day, people are looking to align themselves with companies they believe in, that they think are representative of who they are, that they can trust, that they think have value.”

At Lenz Marketing believes that today, patients are becoming more educated, having greater access to means to look into a prospective provider of healthcare. This means patients are becoming “consumers” in that more and more they are realizing they do have choices and access to ways to get to know about those choices. Lenz is able to help their clients develop a strategy that will improve public awareness of their practice or organization as well as improve engagement with their respective referral bases.

Special Guest:

Mike Killeen, VP of Marketing at Lenz Marketing

12+ years at Lenz Marketing
Bachelor’s in Journalism, University of Georgia
Program Director, “Weekly Check-up With Dr. Bruce Feinberg” on WSB Radio
Founder, “Poverty is Real” non-profit organization
Performing Singer, Songwriter, Musician

Intellectual Property, Film, Music and Sound Production, and Theater

November 4, 2014 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Intellectual Property, Film, Music and Sound Production, and Theater

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Intellectual Property, Film, Music and Sound Production, and Theater

Today’s show focused on the entertainment industry. I sat down with experts in Intellectual property, film, music and sound production, and theater. John Seay, from The Seay Firm LLC is an attorney who focuses his practice on the entertainment space. He talked about how in reality he’s a small business attorney whose major client base comes from the entertainment sector. He serves many small business owners in matters of intellectual property and issues such as trademarks, copyrights, and more. John is a practiced musician who’s been known to perform in the Atlanta area. And, he’s been honored to fulfill his role as legal counsel for the Wilson Pickett estate–making him particularly proud being a fellow Alabama native. John shared some excellent advice for artists who are producing work in print and media with regard to protecting the intellectual property they produce–including things they can do without the help of an attorney that will give them additional recourse in the case of infringement by another party.

John brought along guests Marcus Blackwell, of Make Music Count, and Philip Justman, of Saiah Arts International. Make Music Count is an innovative curriculum for improving understanding of mathematics in young students using music instruction on a keyboard. His approach has proven to be highly effective in children in the Georgia schools where his curriculum is being employed as an after-school offering. Philip Justman joined us to talk about his work at Saiah Arts International, a theater production he has with his wife, Marium Khalid. They provide a cutting edge, immersive theater experience. They place great focus on story telling and character development in their productions, which may take their intimate audience through a half mile to a mile of walking through an outdoor set in the elements as they follow the cast moving through an expansive set in the elements.

Chris Ethridge, of Blue Dusk Promotions came by to talk about the recent release of their motion picture, “Attack of the Morningside Monster“, a thriller-horror film. Chris shared a little about the plot of the story along with some of the well-known acting talent they were able to include in the making of the film, including: Nicholas Brendon, Tiffany Shepis, Robert Pralgo, Catherine Taber and Amber Chaney. The movie, which is available in several video-on-demand outlets, is also going into distribution on DVD/Blueray and has shown popularity with audiences abroad as well.

Our producer, Krista Berutti introduced us to music and sound production specialist, Greg Shearer, of Street Level Sound. StreetLevelSound adds Floor and Decor to the growing client list as well as the new credits in the TV shows “Revenge,” “Keeping Up With The Kardasians,” and “Storage Wars.” Another recent new agency client was BBDO of New York! They also have worked for such clients as AT&T, BMW, Dell, Kellogg’s, Lysol, Conoco Oil, Quaker Steak and Lube, Unocal, Dannon, Kraft, Aetna Insurance, Hard Rock Hotels and Casinos, HIghmark BCBS, TrueValue, Disney, and others. Street Level Sound has worked with agencies including, Leo Burnett, GSD&M, 22 Squared, and Mullen. StreetLevel has also contributed to network shows like “Veronica Mars,” and “10 Things I Hate About You,” Showtime’s “Sleeper Cell,” and regularly to Harpo Productions. The company does great sound design and audio post too! Greg discussed his work in the sound and music production space along with his long-time experience in the recording industry and how those combined experiences make Street Level Sound a popular choice for advertisers and movie/TV productions.

Special Guests:

John Seay, of The Seay Firm LLC

JD, University of Georgia School of Law
Former Tour Manager, Saddle Creek Records
Author of Multiple Published Articles on Entertainment Law and Other Legal Topics
Legal Counsel for the Wilson Pickett Estate

Marcus Blackwell, CEO of Make Music Count

BS, Mathematics, Morehouse College
Former Modeling Analyst, GE Energy
Trained Pianist in Jazz/Classical and Self-taught in Gospel Music
Music Director, Elizabeth Baptist Church

Chris Ethridge, Co-founder of Blue Dusk Productions

Director, “Attack of the Morningside Monster” Motion Picture
Senior Software Engineer, Insight Catastrophe Group
BS Computer Science, James Madison University

Greg Shearer, of Street Level Sound

DMA, Composition, Northwestern University
Bachelor of Music, Guitar Performance, Indiana University
Nominated for Emmy for work on Oprah Winfrey Specials
Multiple-winner of Addy and AIR awards

Philip Justman, Co-founder of Saiah Arts International

20 major awards within 3 years Including: Best Theatrical Show 2012, 2013 and 2014, the Inspiration Award from the City of Prague, and the prestigious Creativity and Arts Impact Award from Emory University.

Predikto Analytics

October 14, 2014 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Predikto Analytics

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This week I sat down with Mario Montag, CEO of Predikto Analytics. Numerous industries rely upon critical, high-value assets to operate their enterprises. Predikto solutions harness the power of Predictive Analytics to address operational challenges in Transportation, Oil & Gas, and Manufacturing. We use any data, including equipment sensor and asset maintenance history, and turn it into actionable insights to reduce asset failures, eliminate surprises and improve operational performance. All of these industries collect data across their operations from a wide variety of sensors monitoring their equipment. The challenge for these businesses is the data may be collected and housed in different locations or followed by different departments, preventing the enterprise from seeing it combined into a clear, concise picture that could be used to anticipate equipment failures well in advance of an actual malfunction. Predikto Analytics leverages the expertise of their skilled analytics experts combined with machine-learning algorithms to do just that with a high degree of accuracy (in many cases exceeding 90% accuracy).

“We start with asking, ‘What problems do you have? What piece of equipment or asset class is costing you a lot?”

This means a rail company can limit downtime by having necessary parts to repair a high-value asset available to make a quick repair and prevent a catastrophic failure, saving them from huge expense, possible public (or employee) injury, and property loss. Similarly, a manufacturing company can get early warning of an impending failure with hours, days, or weeks of notice and allow them to be proactive rather then having to shut down an operation for an extended time due to a mechanical failure. Check out this week’s episode to learn how Predikto Analytics came into being and hear more about how they do the interesting and important work they do.

Special Guest:

Mario Montag, CEO, Co-founder of Predikto Analytics

> 15 years of experience developing transformational technology solutions for Fortune 500 companies
Former Director, North America Oracle Master Data Management practice
MBA, IT, and International Business, Georgia State University J. Mack Robinson College of Business
Fluent in Spanish

Midtown Business Radio Powers B2B Foward With New Media

August 19, 2014 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Midtown Business Radio Powers B2B Foward With New Media

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Midtown Business Radio, Business Radio X Drives B2B, Harnesses Power of Earned Media

New Business Radio X studio affiliates, Dave Schwegman and CW Hall talk about the power of new media in creating relationships and driving B2B companies’ businesses forward. The internet-based radio station takes on the Big Boys with an elegant approach that harnesses the power of earned media to extend the reach of each guest’s message. Traditional media outlets focus on monetizing every available moment of air time. They are also very resistant to giving access to the editorial real estate they have available to Joe Business owner to tell their stories. Midtown Business Radio gives B2B companies the opportunity to have a forum uninterrupted by commercials, traffic, and news to talk about how they help their clients’ businesses move ahead. We don’t determine the agenda for the guests nor do we tell them what they’re going to talk about. Guests don’t pay to appear so the information is real and not “posing” as an interview.

Midtown Business Radio gives a voice to the B2B company that says, “Our product or service speaks for itself! If only we could talk to THESE 50-100 people our business would go crazy!” We don’t need to sell anyone on “Hope” by talking about an audience that’s 400,000 strong. Our listeners tune in specifically to hear OUR GUESTS’ message. That means when you’re on our network you’re talking straight to the very people your business “Hopes!” hear what you’re saying. Enough people listen to our content to rank businessradiox.com among the Top 1% of all websites based on total traffic and visitor behavior (Alexa.com) and >90% of our shows are made possible through contributions from Atlanta-area B2B companies. It’s not an infrequent occurrence that guests of a given show walk out talking about getting together to talk business after appearing together on one of our programs.

If you are a B2B company, particularly one that is hyper-local to the Atlanta area, you’re investing in marketing, and you need to talk to hard-to-reach folks to make your business run we want you join us on Midtown Business Radio! Be our guest and we’ll help you get the word out. We look forward to hearing from you.