I have teamed up with Michael Blake at Adams Capital to do a monthly podcast focused on entrepreneurship and startups in the southeast (including Atlanta.) We are hosting our podcast at a new site called StartupLounge.com. We just posted our first show today!

In this inaugural show, we focus on how entrepreneurs can better “network” in the real world. Should you hard sell the money guy at the networking event? What if the entrepreneur is “shy”, and not very outgoing? How can you evaluate your network, and what are the effective ways of building those key connections as an entrepreneur? How do you get the most out of your professional network?

We’ve got a great show lineup already underway – more details on the other site.

I invite you to head to the StartupLounge.com web site, check out the show notes, and give it a listen!

Cheers.

Jason Caplain, a venture partner with Raleigh-based VC, Southern Capitol Ventures has an interesting post this morning. In it, he discusses why raising capital in the southeast isn’t impossible. I applaud Jason for being part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. You don’t see many VC’s in the southeast blogging about their industry, and there are a few key reasons why (IMHO).

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According to the latest news reports, consumer spending on “Black Friday” was up 5% from 2005. The only exception being Walmart, which didn’t have much in the way of positive news. Same-store sales in November were far below their already soft forecasts. Then of course, there was the debacle with Walmart.com’s web site practically being inaccessible for most of the day (I took some personal interest in this story, as the President of Walmart.com is a family friend – but I digress.) The point of this post is that I think it is time for a new retail yardstick during the holidays.

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What you don’t know about the video game industry just might surprise you. Generating revenues in excess of $10B in 2005, it has well eclipsed the $9B Hollywood film industry. What if I told you that the conditions were ripe for an explosion in this sector in Georgia?

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I like to view the end product of networking as something I can quantify in some way. After all, what good is going to the candy store if you don’t walk out with something sweet? For me, the end result of successful networking is the generation of social capital.

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I recently asked a professional friend of mine to define networking for me. His reply? “It is basically meeting new people, right?” And he wonders why he can never get anyone to return his calls. Networking is not as simple as two people standing in a room exchanging business cards, sales leads, or other information. It transcends that level of simplicity by light years.

Now I am not about to sit here and try to convince you that I am the authoritative figure on business networking – the swami of the handshake – the sultan of cocktail hour. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nevertheless, I would like to offer you some of my views of traditional (offline) business networking.

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Why should California have all the fun? We are beginning to see a number of startups here in Georgia that fall into one or more of the following niches:

• collective intelligence
• social media
• interactive / online communities / social networks
• software-as-a-service (SaaS) / ASP

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