Massey NTC CEO

Nashville Technology Council's next CEO, and its first woman in the post, will be Liza Lowery Massey, a veteran of both IT and consulting. Read about her and NTC here.

Nashville Tech Council

NTC announced its new officers and board members, right here.

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.

Venture events sked

Venture-oriented events in Metro/Nashville during April and May are listed here.

TN 'energy grab'?

In the 21 items of this week's NewsBits, perhaps nothing is more intriguing than news that several Tennessee legislators are working to gain state support for a clean-coal initiative. All that and more, right here.

NTC reports IT/SW hiring trends

Nashville Technology Council and Vaco present their latest quarterly summary of IT and software help-wanted postings, showing healthcare the perennial hotspot in town. The accompanying press release is here.

MyWerx founder 'Innovator of the Year'

MyWerx, the copyright-management solutions company founded and led by CEO Tim Smith (left), must be doing something important: Smith has just been named 'Innovator of the Year' by Nashville Technology Council. Here's the full NTC listing of honorees. Before founding MyWerx two years ago, Smith was, among other roles, CIO of Simplex, the local diabetics supply company; director, business systems, LBMC; SVP at Copyright Management, and more.

Nashville Entrepreneur Center gets $100K TTDC grant

The Tennessee Technology Development Corporation board of directors today approved a $100K grant for the fledgling Nashville Entrepreneur Center, approved a number of contracts designed to education and mobilize the state's entrepreneurs and prepared for perhaps six weeks of tough slogging in the General Assembly, as TTDC competes for scarce state resources, to keep its work moving ahead. Our story is 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

Microsoft's Ballmer in Music City

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's meetings here tomorrow are being covered like the diplomatic visit of the head of state of a small nation rich in strategically important ores. The Tennessean reports on Ballmer's scheduled meetings with Nashville Technology Council, Nashville Health Care Council and the music industry, as part of a multi-city tour by the peregrine executive who's been at the helm of MS ten years. The story's here. Given MS's strong position in technology for the healthcare vertical, there's mention in the story of MS possibly being a tenant in the proposed Nashville Medical Trade Center.

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.

Tech Council aides to new gigs

Sara Carter (left), who was for three years member-services manager at Nashville Technology Council, is now program coordinator for the Aspirnauts high-school education program that brings math-science instruction to rural students in Arkansas during their lengthy bus rides, in vehicles equipped with Internet. The program was authored at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and is allied with the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach. A related NY Times story is here. Meanwhile, NTC's former director of marketing, Kevin Bittorie (right), is now an account manager in Nashville for the staffing firm Otterbase, which is based in Grand Rapids, Mich.

NTC invites donations to funds

Nashville Technology Council yesterday announced creation of two funds, one to support postsecondary scholarships for students interested in technology, the other to support charitable technology-oriented works in the community. The NTC release is here. The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee will administer the funds. Related VNC story on CFMT's Ellen Lehman.

Entrepreneur Center Search update

Nashville Technology Council CEO Tod Fetherling tells VNC that Entrepreneur Center supporters have done well enough, already, to surpass their initial $200K target for raising money to enable the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce-linked EC to proceed with hiring its first executive director. Further, said Fetherling, there's now a strong field of candidates and someone could well be in-place by late January, and possibly announced even sooner. Fetherling said that Janet Miller has led the fundraising, with Fetherling and EC Project Manager Joe Kustelski also contributing to the effort.

Ballmer, Lundberg at NTC event

Nashville Technology Council reminded us this morning its 2nd Annual Membership Breakfast, Jan. 20, 2010, will feature not only Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (at left); but, also, former CIO Magazine Editor Abbie Lundberg.

N'ville Software Golden Age?

Roughly five years ago, Nashville Technology Council, then led by David Condra, launched a Software Developers Roundtable. The energy in the room during the SDRT's first meeting at the University Club was amazing. People were there, open-minded and energized to plug into other people who cared about creating new technologies and applications. There were modest young startup geniuses there that day, as well as older hands (Tim, Major, Al and many others). Soon, volunteers cobbled-together a nice website (now gone into the ether), a few more meetings were held, but following Condra's retirement from his post, interest shifted to other things. I was reminded of the excitement around the SDRT this morning, while reading a story on the San Jose Mercury News' Silicon Valley site. The focus? The myriad opportunities associated with developing applications for new technology platforms. Whether SDRT or some other vehicle, maybe it's time to uncrate this idea, again.

Entrepreneur Center exec search continues

VNC reports today that the search for a new executive director for the new Nashville Entrepreneur Center continues.

Tech Council bash honors execs

Although Nashville Technology Council CEO Tod Fetherling aims for more nominees in 2010, he clearly considers last night's Schermerhorn awards event a success, with nearly 400 attending. While pushing recognition of excellence in the tech community, Fetherling has a lot else on his plate. Read about it here.

Entrepreneur Center kickoff

Here's VNC's advance story on the scheduled unveiling of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center and a new ChamberP2010 marketing campaign. Updated: Here are post-announcement stories from TSN, NBJ and NvP..

NTC group-purchasing program

Nashville Technology Council launched a group-purchasing program for its members, including health-insurance benefits, office supplies and other goods and services.