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we have pioneered innovative analytical tools and formed strategic partnerships that bring together investors, developers and entrepreneurs, enabling us to deliver capital precisely where it will do the most good.

choose the type of person that could best deliver that message. "You’re creating a persona," Ardakani says. Is it feminine or masculine? Mainstream or quirky? Opinionated or open-minded? If your business was a human being, who would it be and what would it care about?

Founder Azita Ardakani redefined Foodily's core value, saying it gives you the opportunity to spend more time eating at home with family and friends. On social media, she asked consumers to share their favorite dinner table memories and what it means to them to eat at home. "We saw a natural conversation erupting," she says.

What made Ardakani’s interpretation of Foodily's core value so much more successful was that it created an opportunity for human connection.

Your real value is about what you believe in, what you’re trying to do in the world, and how you make others’ lives better.

You might ask: How is your product being created? What is your office culture? You're looking for the thing that your organization truly cares about -- an aspect of your business that makes you unique and valuable to the world around you.

Symbid confirms that their investors want to live vicariously through the efforts and innovation of the issuers.  Their Angel investors frequently roll over their investments.  The investor communication tool allows for investors to easily be updated and even vote on board members and larger decisions with the founders.

“In Europe, there will be increasing fusion between crowdfunding and angel networks. The notion that they are two entirely distinct concepts is an artificial one, and we will begin seeing more and more investors using both online (crowdfunding platforms) and offline (angel networks) methods to make their investments.”

However, US Angel networks will embrace crowdfunding more when

and not necessarily for a return on capital.

crowdfunding for equity becomes legal in the US in 2014.

er dealers that will emerge in 2013 as crowdfunding for equity is delayed. 

The exception will be the new brok

Leading crowdfunding for equity players like Chance Barnett at CrowdFunder and Candace Klein at SoMoLend are getting licensed as brokers and will start engaging leading angel networks in the US.  SecondMarket’s partnership with Angelist is a recent direction how the landscape is changing.  Angelist had $12 million plus in transaction by angels into start ups in December 2012.

The new angel network ‘upstart’ FundingPost

While content is king, distribution is king kong

a major shift away from the traditional orthodoxy of demography and socio-economics as predictor variables of an economic trajectory.

+ a spending propensity model (SPM) to identify the respective economic impact of each social type.

NEOs dominate elective consumption (discretionary spending) in developed economies,

behavior is determined by progressive social attitudes and tertiary needs.

NEOs are largely metropolitan dwellers, with more of them living in inner urban areas than anywhere else

Forty-five per cent of NEOs are women and 55 per cent are men

tend to be younger than Traditionals

Half of all people with a university degree are NEOs

EOs are most likely to be in professional or management occupations, and earn more than the rest of society

NEOs spend more … and more frequently … than anyone else. Ninety-three percent of NEOs are in the Big Spender category, compared to only 4 per cent of Traditionals.[9]

members of the Creative Class value meritocracy, diversity and individuality, and look for these characteristics when they relocat

For a city to attract the Creative Class, he argues, it must possess "the three 'T's": Talent (a highly talented/educated/skilled population), Tolerance (a diverse community, which has a 'live and let live' ethos), and Technology (the technological infrastructure necessary to fuel an entrepreneurial culture)

“the Creative Class share of the workforce; innovation, measured as patents per capita; high tech industry, using the Milken Institute's widely accepted Tech Pole Index…; and diversity, measured by the Gay Index, a reasonable proxy for an area’s openness"

Creative workers are looking for cultural, social, and technological climates in which they feel they can best "be themselves".

active participation in a variety of experiential activities.

Street Level Culture

hard to draw the line between participant and observer, or between creativity and its creators”

interest in being participants and not spectators

40 million workers—30 percent of the U.S. workforce

Super-Creative Core: This group comprises about 12 percent of all U.S. jobs. It includes a wide range of occupations (e.g. science, engineering, education, computer programming, research), with arts, design, and media workers forming a small subset. Florida considers those belonging to this group to “fully engage in the creative process” (2002, p. 69). The Super-Creative Core is considered innovative, creating commercial products and consumer goods. The primary job function of its members is to be creative and innovative. “Along with problem solving, their work may entail problem finding”

knowledge-based workers

Florida argues that the Creative Class is socially relevant because of its members' ability to spur regional economic growth through innovation (2002).

these usually require a high degree of formal education

Check out the great new flyer from Hamiltonians Against Neighborhood Displacement (HAND) about how creative city policies are causing displacement in Hamilton, Ontario.  If you are interested in contacting them please let us know.

Events

Makeovers

Company culture. Generate greater customer engagement by giving your clients an inside peek at your business through a board or boards that offer a feel for your company's style, ideas, projects and commitments.

Create a strong 'hook' statement.

focus on the benefits you're providing.

following up your hook statement with an engaging story

Also consider packaging your product with a bonus -- an exclusive incentive which they'll only get if they act now.

This allows your offer to become time-sensitive and inspires customers to take action.

the important thing is to understand your customers. You need to know what they find useful.

That was because we were speaking to genuine customer demand.

At that time we started up FreelanceSwitch where we could put our lessons learned. We also started a tutorial blog. Those sites today receive close to 10 million visits a month. They have grown a lot over the years. The company today comprises two parts. We have the market places and 12 tutorial sites that cover everything from game development to making music sound like a DJ.