Grade A Entrepreneurs

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis @mddelphis

I love Eliane Fiolet and Hubert Nguyen the brilliant founders of Ubergizmo, one of the top blogs about gadgets, gizmos, shifts and turns. Look at their portrait by Renee Blodgett at the first Digital Summer they organized last year with Girls in Tech. The event was a huge success (glance at it through the eyes of Ziv Gillat). They do it again this year, on August 25, with the sponsorship of Intel and Verizon. Once again, they will invite the San Francisco glamour tech crowd “to celebrate photography, fashion, art, and technology,” and present a live runway fashion show of four designers (Colleen Quen Couture, Jan Warnock, Harputs OWN and Sofie Olgaard) and multiple artisan jewelers featured by Manika Jewelry. Of course, great media partners are part of the story too, from Mashable to Yanko Design,
 CultofMac,
 Techie Diva,
 TechMamas, Burdastyle, 
FashionablyMarketing.me,
 Thread, or
 We Blog the World. The location is in sync with the idea, as they have chosen the trendy Temple.

Clearly, it’s not your average “networking event.” It’s a true party with no name tags, where guests from diverse worlds enjoy a relax atmosphere, discover new things and participate in live activities — such as glamming up at the makeup stations, experiencing an Eye-Fi studio photo-shoot or watching designers’ clothing via Internet-connected touch-screen signage powered by the Intel® Core™i7. It’s a global, inclusive show, where you come nicely dressed (“chic and elegant” is the recommendation) and will see dozens of people who may be more daring than you are, but with whom you will gladly share a festive environment. Don’t go to this event to tell everybody that you are looking for a job or that you are a “world class” expert in this or that. Come if you are a real person, able to communicate with only a few words (it’s too noisy for your latest pitch, anyway). Hold off the technobabble; just be a soft conversationalist and relish the enchantment of a moment.

There is no reason to separate technology from lifestyles. Not only is technology part of our lifestyles, but technology itself is increasingly dependent on stylistic trends – and the ability for product designers to anticipate or capture what will be “it.” With Digital Summer, Eliane achieves two goals: “I attend a huge number of technology events and I am always sorry to find out that there are few women. So when I designed the first Digital Summer, I decided 1) to partner with Girls in Tech because I wanted women in technology to feel welcome and 2) to involve the design teams that create the technology products that we buy. So the idea is to gather around a technology event people who rarely show up.” So, you won’t see ugly products, and maybe you will discover the Vivienne Tam‘s HP mini!

Get hip… And take that California trip, and “get your kicks” a few blocks away from route 80! You are allowed to like fashion, because it’s not only kosher, but also completely normal these days! If you don’t, you might be downright uncool. That’s a change in the Valley that I personally like. When I came over here at the end of the eighties, I had to carefully hide the fact that I had spent quite a few years in the fashion industry and written a few books on the topic for fear of coming across as techie illiterate in the midst of know-it-alls in their post-hippie “casual” wear or standardized business suits that reeked of the seventies to me although they were in their thirties. Of course, you aren’t required to obsess over your clothes and be aware of what’s in at each season, but you certainly lose impact when you discuss the next hottest thing in social media if nothing sparks about you, or places you in what is in the air — the little fancy something that emphasizes your personality. Nobody asks you to turn into a shopaholic townie or to hire professional image advisors (usually godawful dogmatic creatures). Think of it this way: fashion is more about eliminating unwanted weary yester-looks. Technologies do evolve. Looks do too and fashion is a way to revamp oneself now and then. Thank you Ubergizmo!

Note: Objective Marketer is one of the partners of the event – in charge of the social media strategy. More later!