CEO search underway for Nashville Technology Council

Chairman Andy Flatt and Vice Chair Chris Sloan say they're preparing to mount a search for Tod Fetherling's replacement, now the CEO has announced his plans to leave Nashville Technology Council for HealthDataSource. Story here.

Steve Ballmer, NTC pro-technology event

Tidbits from this morning's annual membership meeting of the Nashville Technology Council, convened at Trevecca Nazarene University, and attended by about 800 persons (largest NTC meeting ever, apparently): NTC Board Chairman Andy Flatt (CIO, Healthspring) said the association aims to establish statewide leadership, leveraging the Metro Nashville region's growth. President Tod Fetherling said the NTC board is holding a strategic-planning meeting this afternoon, no doubt mulling a raft of Fetherling initiatives and trying to prioritize for quality and resources. Fetherling said NTC memberships are up 18 percent, year-over-year, but didn't elaborate. Mayor Karl Dean told the audience last night's Music City Center approval by Metro Council will strengthen N'ville Healthcare, Tourism and, thereby, education, which is our biggest vulnerability as a destination for investment, relocation and retention of talent. Microsoft's personable CEO Steve Ballmer seemed tame, compared with his reputation in tech circles as an often frenzied speaker, but he delivered an engaging, albeit unabashedly commercial overview of MS' latest offerings and things now coming off the drawing boards. He noted that Sharepoint is the company's fastest-growing product, to date. He said technology can help society with one of its biggest and most persistent challenges: accelerating the pace of experimentation and innovation, and enabling faster iterative cycles in tech development and deployment. He mentioned, in particular, the relevance of this in modeling and simulations for energy, science and medicine. Ballmer showed some appreciation for Tennessee's foothold in those areas. (The acceleration and enablement themes were also woven through a tidy presentation by Abbie Lundberg, former editor of CIO.) Ballmer managed, with a wink to his audience, to do all this without uttering the words "Google," or "YouTube," focusing on Bing, Hulu and other platforms. Ballmer speaks at lunchtime to a similar gathering of Nashville Health Care Council at the Hilton downtown. Ballmer told the audience his e-mail is steveb-at-microsoft-dot-com

Tech Council moves on wi-fi under Flatt, Fetherling

Nashville Technology Council Chairman Andy Flatt, the CIO at Healthspring, apparently wasn't making idle chatter last summer, when VNC reported Flatt was considering a broadband or wi-fi initiative during his term atop NTC. The idea of launching a Metro wi-fi or wi-max network has been around more than four years, since well before a special Metro Council task force, chaired by Zycron Founder and entrepreneur Darrell Freeman, and spurred by then-Councilman David Briley, began pushing for improved broadband in Davidson County and environs. The Task Force report is here. NTC President Tod Fetherling told VNC this afternoon that, provided the small pilot of the system goes well in February, new nodes could be added beyond the core's rougly 1-mile radius by this spring. NTC, Fetherling said, is defraying the $3K pilot cost from NTC cashflow. San Francisco-based Meraki, which is supporting NTC's effort, has public wi-fi installations in many cities, including Harvard Square.

Nashville Technology Council leadership changes

Andy Flatt, the fellow who this week succeeds Beth Chase (left) as chairman of Nashville Technology Council, says the group will re-examine its strategic plan during an August retreat, and defining its service territory is but one hot issue. Read the full story here.