Category: Chicago

Chicago

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Wanted Movie – Mobile Chicago Local Neighborhood Filming

Yesterday I came home and found a note on the door (see below) about the filming of the Universal Pictures film Wanted over the next few days. The movie’s cast includes Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Common, Konstantin Khabensky, Terence Stamp, Chris Pratt and Kristen Hager. Normally, I don’t write about celebrities, then again movies normally aren’t shot right in front of my window in a highly residential neighborhood! I’m hoping they’ll be good neighbors while they are here.

The focus area of the local shoot appears to be two blocks south of Wrigley Field in Chicago’s Wrigleyville neighborhood. An antique shop seems to be one of the areas of focus. As of this writing, they are still setting up tons of mobile equipment here locally. The note says traffic will be diverted from 11Pm-5AM tonight, when combined with all the lighting equipment being brought in and it appears that some of the scenes will be shot at night August 12-13th. A local neighborhood map of this Chicago area can be found here.

I’ve never seen so many cops around (also pictured below). I mean the Chicago Cubs could actually win the World Series and there would be less cops! It’s too bad the Chicago Police aren’t out in force like this on game days or on Friday or Saturday nights on Clark Street in Chicago.

If you have any notes on what they are filming or you are going to be in the area, please drop me a note or write your own blog post about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Take care.

UPDATE 8/13 7:30AM: The filming did not take place last night. There is only a few people out there right now.

UPDATE #2 8/13 3:45PM A truck just unloaded 3 older cars in front of my place. No plates on the cars.

UPDATE #3 8/13 5:15PM – Just received this email from Alderman Tunney’s office:

To the residents and businesses in Wrigleyville

The cast and crew of “Wanted” would like to thank you for your cooperation and patience during the filming in your neighborhood. (Commentary – does this mean a free screening?)

While the Studio is Universal Pictures, the crew is made up to a large extent of residents from the Chicago area who are highly professional and respectful of the areas where we film.

Tonight is our last night of main unit filming in your neighborhood. The locations will be mainly in the alley between Sheffield and Clark from Roscoe to School St and in the alley east of Clark between Roscoe and Newport and there will be some simulated gunfire in these areas. As always, Chicago Police will be with us to help with any traffic problems.

We greatly appreciate your patience and look forward to seeing Wrigleyville in the movies.

Thank you.

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TiE Chicago Chapter Start Up Stories

Moderator: Jai Shekhawat, CEO of Fieldglass

Alan Warms, former CEO of Participate and now Publisher of Real Politics (Buzztracker)

Matt Moog, CEO of Viewpoints

James Malackowski, CEO of Ocean Tomo

First up is Alan, founder of Buzztracker. Was part of Freeloader, eShare, Participate Systems, Realclearpolitics.com and now Buzztracker. The opportunity is to build the custom content feeds that can be delivered and used by the entire ecosystem of the Internet domain owners and management companies. I kept waiting for an explanation of how his site(s) added value to the Internet ecosystem from the user’s perspective – I’m still waiting for him to distinguish it significantly from a MFA Splog network.

Matt Moog, CEO and Founder of Viewpoints. Used to work at Q Interactive and Microsoft. We raised $50 Million and then $25 Million in the market and blew through that in 6 months. Recovered to be cashflow positive (2003) and net income (2004). Viewpoints has raised $4.7 Million in series A, currently 7 employees. The business is about reviews in different verticals.

James says that 79.2% of the economy is driven by intangible assets in 2005 and up from 16.2% in 1975. We created Ocean Tomo after we sold our first business. We are the Sotheby’s of intellectual property. People recognize it. Ocean Tomo 300 is now published. Innovation actually outperforms commodities. Ocean Tomo has not taken outside capital at this time.

Throughout the evening one could not help but be impressed by the uniqueness of James Malackowski’s ideas and execution and Matt Moog’s perseverance, transparency and desire to build anew.

What is the best way to become an entrepreneur?

Alan: Live for some period of time without a W-2. Test out a new hypothesis. Go to conferences seeing what people are doing. Start building some things, hire a developer, and try to get a customer or two. How do you decide whether the idea is big enough? Is the market ready for it?

Matt: I was working at Microsoft and was 25 years old. On the side, I took some money and built an application. It was on CD, pre-Internet. Speed up ten years, I wrote the initial plan in 2005 for Viewpoints. Then I left to found it 2006.

James: Unique combination of greed and panic!

Is it about the money?

James: Yes. It’s about sacrificing family and other things.

Alan: You care about the money.

Matt: You have an informal formula. I have not paid myself anything for the past year. I’d be currently willing to do this for up to 3 years.

James: People don’t hedge their bet. There is market space and risk. You can recover your investment.

Matt: With Coolsavings we raised angel money, then got on the hyper growth track of raising more money. A well known investment banker was telling us to raise more money. Then I had $15 Million in debt and $100,000 in cash. I needed to raise some money to hire a staff to do the stuff I couldn’t do. The later you spend the money, the smarter you’ll spend it.

How do you raise too much money?

Matt: I didn’t set out to raise as much as I did at Viewpoints. It’s possible to lose control. Each dollar raised the higher the investor expectation. This is kind of a funny dynamic.

Alan: You’re at point A and you want to get to point F. We try to raise $3 Million and got $13 Million. You get scar tissue.

James, you did it the smart way?

James: Over three years, I was burning up that non-compete, I went to institutional side looking for loans, Harris Bank told us no. Then we asked if they’d lend us $15,000 for a car and there were five of us so we raised $75,000. It’s all about the capital structure and how you communicate a request.

Matt: Always be transparent in everything you do.

Ron May brought up that Moog’s dad had invented the Moog synthesizer. (Matt seems to have a strong desire to stand on his own accomplishments). There was then a question on hiring.

James: The smartest person we hire at Ocean Tomo is the person we hire today.

How do you keep the group in tact?

James: We try to take people outside our industry. That is a huge attraction. You will be richer for the experience even if it doesn’t work. They not only have to believe in the vision, they have to believe in you.

Matt: Lon offered an office out of the blue. Most of the people come from Orbitz. People have to be jazzed about working at our company. I like the people who like to ask questions.

Matt: Lon Chow gave me a book. It’s a “The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executives”. Are people aligned and communicating? In terms of the revenue model figure out how much do ads sell for, what do they look like? On the west coast, build an audience then figure it rules the day. Businesses never grow at the rate that they say they do. Sometimes you’ll grow three times as fast other times not as fast.

Great conversation and event by TiE!!!

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Chicago Conference Attendees Point to Chicago Shortcomings

Brian Beutler posts his beliefs on why there are so few electric outlets available here at YearlyKos 2007 conference:

” The McCormick Convention Center is, unsurprisingly, operated by a series of labor groups who, working hand in hand, rip apart the building and put it back together to fit the needs of whichever group happens to be renting space here. So for YearlyKos, the teamsters, and the plumbers, and the electricians all come in to haul partitions, and divert piping, and… lay wiring. One catch is, of course, that the more wiring you need, the more you have to pay. The other, less obvious catch, is that any wiring you try to do yourself–running extension chords and power strips across the room–might well violate your contract and cost you a big fine. So the result is a lot of dead laptop batteries. At a frickin’ blogger convention.”

Matthew Yglesias points out similar sentiment.

Then last weekend Kristy Sammis, the wonderful hard-working conference organizer, pointed out the following issues on her blog in regards to Blogher07:

“The City of Chicago has a lot of rules. A LOT of them. And also taxes. And fines. Like, did you know that there’s a 3% soda tax? Or that our caterer could have lost his license for letting attendees leave with bottles of wine, even though the nice people at Hess were willing to give the extras out? Or that moving one single air wall would have cost FOUR HOURS of labor?”

“The shuttles cost approximately 18 billion dollars. (They would have only cost 17 billion, but we paid that extra billion to have a dedicated dispatcher ensuring that all five shuttles were running all day.)

I do not know why the drivers didn’t know where they were going. I don’t know why they just sometimes stopped showing up. I don’t know why they weren’t labeled, a la BLOGHER SHUTTLE. And I really don’t know HOW you can get into an accident when you’re driving at 3 miles an hour in Pier traffic.

But I, too, would sure like to find out.”

Kristy so would I. Why is Chicago turning off it’s last golden goose, the conference industry? If we can’t run shuttle buses less than a mile for 800 people how can this city possibly even dream of executing on hosting huge events with the current state?

As someone who spends alot of time at Chicago conferences, the time to improve these situations is now – before there are no more Chicago conferences.

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Google Book Search Partners with University of Chicago and Big 10

I was flipping through the most recent University of Chicago alumni magazine and noticed a small blurb about The University of Chicago and 11 of the Big Ten partnering with Google Book Search. The press release states:

“These universities, through their provosts and other key leaders, have worked
together on some of higher education’s greatest challenges and opportunities.
This partnership with Google is one of the most ambitious undertakings in the
history of the CIC, and sets the stage for a remarkable transformation of library
services and information access. We’re opening up these resources as both a
common good shared among the universities, as well as a public good available
more broadly, ” said Barbara McFadden Allen, director of the CIC.”

This announcement followed 5 days after Barry Schwartz reporting about custom search engines. It appears things are heating up again in the Book Search arena.

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Potential Chicago Cab Strike July 31 – How to Get to adtech(ad:tech) via CTA

With today’s possible cab strike in Chicago, I thought it would be a good idea to post CTA bus options to arrive at the west end of Navy Pier. Please note that even with these bus options, it is a10 minute walk to the east end of Navy Pier where the Festival Hall is located. I highly suggest taking the bus instead of walking the entire distance and wish the actually CTA stopped at Navy Pier East Entrance #2. Please check out my current question on Yahoo! Answers regarding Navy Pier.

Here are some tips on how to navigate via CTA to Navy Pier. Cash fare on the CTA is currently $2. This is a pdf map of the areas described below.

From the Sheraton: the #29, #65 and #124 buses stop in front of the Sheraton on Illinois and terminate and 600 East Grand Avenue, this will save you three blocks of walking.

The number#124 bus starts in the West Loop at Union Station, Ogilvie Transportation Center and terminates at 600 East Grand Avenue.

If traveling from Midway Airport, take the Orange line to Roosevelt, walk down the stairs and travel one block west to State Street. Take the#29 State bus northbound to 600 East Grand Avenue.

If traveling from O’hare Airport, take the blue line to Monroe, walk up the stairs, then walk one block east to State Street. Take the#29 State bus northbound to 600 East Grand Avenue.

For those staying at a hotel a bit further north, the #66 bus travels east on Chicago Avenue, then south on Fairbanks to Grand to 600 East Grand Avenue.

For those of you attending ad:tech, I have the following high level networking objectives and look forward to speaking with you (please drop me an email contained on my Bio page):

1) I’m seeking anyone with senior contacts at major search engines

2) Anyone with ideas or connections to publishers, advertisers or investors regarding mobile search and mobile advertising.

Have a great show!

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Blogher 2007 is Happening Now!

I’m here at Blogher (blogher07) in Chicago to network with the awesome people, I’m especially interested meeting people working in the mobile search marketing start ups and traditional search engines like Ask, MSN/Live and Yahoo!

I’ve already met some fun and compassionate people! This conference is unique to me in that it’s not so much about me learning about new online marketing or blogging techniques. It’s about learning about different points of view of looking at the world. There are about 800 people here and it’s a bit overwhelming in terms of effective and targeted networking. But everyone is very open – I wish women everywhere communicated to me in the frank straightforward manner that I’m experiencing here.

I’m sitting in a session on branding. Many of the people I know in the room are IM’ing me. Here is a nice summary of the session from Felicia Sullivan.