Grants leaves Cisco

Longtime Nashville technology presence Frank Grant, Cisco's Nashville-based healthcare lead, has taken on a new challenge at revenue-cycle oriented Adreima, based in Phoenix. Read more.

WSJ reports Cisco ties with Owen GSM at VU

Frank Grant (left), who has previously been profiled on VNC, is described today in The Wall Street Journal as the linchpin in putting-together Cisco's new relationship with Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management. Cisco wanted its salesforce targeting hospitals to get-up-to-speed on the realities of healthcare operations; and, after talking with a variety of training firms, opted for Owen GSM. HT: VU News Service

Cisco on-stage

The Mercury News reports on Cisco's increasing penetration of the music and entertainment fields, and its plans to sell back-end technology to major players. The report's here.

Telemedicine

UnitedHealth Group, which offers AmericChoice coverage through TennCare, is traveling the state with a telehealth exhibit and has awarded more than $300,000 in grants to communities and health organizations to encourage telemedicine. The KNS reports. Related UnitedHealth-Cisco news release. Teh roadshow is at Meharry Medical College today.

Brentwood's ZOOM in partnership

Brentwood-based ZOOM International today announced a sales and marketing alliance with Atlanta-based GMT Corp., through which the companies will sell a unified WorkFORCE product offering for call centers. VNC's earlier story on Brian Shore (left) of ZOOM.

VC: Mid-Tennessee firms 'the Next Cisco'?

Within 30 days of the "Black Week" of Oct. 6, middle Tennessee-based Pathfinder Therapeutics (Nashville) and ProstimRx (Hendersonville) secured first-round VC funding, qualifying them for Scott Austin's list of 18 companies that are among U.S. firms that might theoretically follow in Cisco's footsteps, given they raised money in the wake of a major stock slump -- provided, says Austin via the WSJ, they stay "lean and mean." A Kauffman Foundation study released today reinforces Austin's premise.

Accelerating the Nashville brand

Students in the bootcamp-like summer Accelerator program at VU's Owen Graduate School of Management are tackling a half-dozen marketing and related assignments. (VU release is here.) Among them: Today, the students receive the groundrules for developing a new branding campaign that will leverage Nashville's 'Music City' identity, expanding the Nashville brand to convey the city's entrepreneurism. The resultant campaign may be used to lure technology and other high-growth companies, and is expected to be integrated into a new Virtual Entrepreneurship Center. Other Accelerator clients include Arlington Vineyards, Sony Music, Cisco, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee (the latter, a challenge to create a new social network for BCBST and its subsidiary, Gordian). Judges for the 'Music City' branding exercise include Janet Miller of the Chamber; Tod Fetherling of Nashville Technology Council; Butch Spyridon of the Convention and Visitors Bureau; entrepreneur Mike Shmerling; and, Mike Edwards of First Tennessee. Our story on the '08 Accelerator, here. The Chamber has been exploring and developing the Entrepreneurship Center since fall 2006. The virtual presence is likely to materialize along with a recoverying economy, in 2010. Noted: The CVB maintains a listing of companies that have integrated the existing Music City brand into their businesses.

Cisco I-Prize results could inspire Nashville

Cisco Systems announced in San Jose Oct. 14 that the company's massive I-Prize competition had ended with selection of a German-Russian team with a proposal to improve "energy efficiency by taking advantage of Cisco’s leadership in Internet Protocol (IP) technology." Two college students -- Anna and Niels Gossen, computer-science students at German universities -- plus Russian systems engineer Sergie Bessonnitsyn, will share in a $250K prize and may yet be offered Cisco jobs. Work apparently continues on planning the proposed business to use Cisco products and services for collaboration that produces increased "energy efficiencies." Details are considered proprietary and were not disclosed. The goal of the I-Prize competition was to find at least one business idea with the potential to earn $1 billion in revenue for Cisco, during a span of five to seven years. In July, Cisco's I-Prize leader, David Hsieh, told VNC he thought the I-Prize process could be replicated in Nashville, a city he has several times visited. Hsieh's regular post is director of marketing for emerging technologies. Stats: 12 finalist teams included a total 40 persons, with team sizes ranging from 1 to 10, and with finalists teams' members drawn from 13 nations on five continents. A third of the finalist teams originated in the U.S. At the beginning of the contest, there were nearly 2,500 persons from 104 nations, submitting 1,200 innovative ideas.

Tech exec grabs Czech

We reported Tuesday on former Cisco regional manager Brian Shore's appointment to the presidency for North American operations of ZOOM International, a telephony call recording and analytics provider, which will headquarter in Brentwood. Our story is here, including reference to Brian's skydiving adventure with his new boss, a 29-year-old Czech entrepreneur. Want more? That's Brian at left, at a hangar in Prague. Brian's ride is documented on YouTube, right here. ZOOM will be a story to watch. ZOOM Founder-CEO Simon Vostry has reportedly been something of an entrepreneur since age 11 or so, and, at 29, he's now riding a global wave of technologic innovation.