What is at the heart of Silicon Valley? What makes it tick? Mike will provide an enlightening talk this evening on the essence of this leading innovative and entrepreneurial region.

Speaker Biography
Mike is the visionary behind Floor64, building up the core idea into reality and recruiting the management team. In addition to providing the strategic direction for the company, Mike oversees all editorial aspects of the Floor64's public and customer sites. Mike's insight into the realms of business and technology are the basis for his frequent posts to the award winning Techdirt blog. The widely followed, often quoted blog was launched in 1997. Prior to founding Floor64 Inc., Mike worked in business development and marketing at Release Software, an e-commerce startup, and in marketing at Intel. Mike has a bachelor's degree in Industrial and Labor Relations and an MBA – both from Cornell University.

More about Mike Masnick and Floor64:
William founded AdECN in October, 2003. Most recently, William was CEO of publicly-traded ExperTelligence (EXGP.PK) and its subsidiary, 3DStockCharts, from July 2002 until the end of 2003, when he engineered the wind-up and liquidation of that company. Previously, William started and ran three successful private companies, all located in Santa Barbara: In 2000 he started The Narrative Press, Inc., a digital book publishing company with 106 titles, which he sold in December 2005.

Floor64 has been generating insights and developing insight platforms for over 10 years -- and doing so in unique and innovative ways designed to help drive businesses forward, rather than keeping them tied to the past. We manage both Techdirt and also the exciting new marketplace for connecting companies with a diverse community of expertise, the Insight Community.

Visit Floor64.com

About Techdirt:
Started in 1997 by Floor64 founder Mike Masnick and then growing into a group blogging effort, the Techdirt blog uses a proven economic framework to analyze and offer insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies ability to innovate and grow.

The dynamic and interactive community of Techdirt readers often comment on the addictive quality of the content on the site, a feeling supported by the blog's 850,000+ RSS subscribers, 35,000+ posts, 250,000+ comments and a consistent Technorati 100 rating. Both Business Week and Forbes have awarded Techdirt with Best of the Web thought leader awards.

Guardian article on Mike Masnick: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/01/blogging.interviews