"It's still you you know" is Handshake 2.0's motto, and we've made business leadership lists on Twitter to foster the development of "who you know."  As we mentioned in this post, We're a Company on a Mission and We're Doing What It Takes - Twitter Lists Included.

Billy Newcomb, a hydrogeologist with Draper Aden Associates, is on Handshake 2.0's Twitter List of Business, Company, and Corporate Executives.

We asked Newcomb, "Why are you on Twitter?" He kindly replied:

I am a business-oriented social media user. I integrated my Twitter account with my LinkedIn account for business contacts, outreach and research.  As a consulting hydrogeologist, I am interested in many topics relating to natural resources and sustainable energy. These are fast-moving and highly technical fields with legal, regulatory, community and scientific facets that weigh on each other.

I am also interested in our local community, and the state of business in the Roanoke and New River Valleys of Virgina. Social media provides an unparalleled and very efficient means for keeping up-to-date on these topics, and to foster collaboration between other professionals when discussion threads form that bear relevance to my work.  My goal is to post at least 30 tweets per month, hoping to provide people participating in the web-sphere with relevant content on issues for which we share an interest.

***

Handshake 2.0 has started lists of the like-minded - corporate leadership - in our region in Twitter Lists, beginning in Blacksburg, Virginia and the surrounding New River Valley of Virginia. 

Handshake 2.0's Twitter List of Company Founders

Handshake 2.0's Twitter List of Business, Company, and Corporate Executives

Are you on our lists?  If you're not, please let us know to add you!  Please DM us at Handshake 2.0 on Twitter.

"The mission of a manufacturer is to overcome poverty by producing an abundant supply of goods... The mission of a manufacturer is to create material abundance by providing goods as plentiful and inexpensive as tap water. This is how we can banish poverty, bring happiness to people's lives and make this world into a paradise."

- Matsushita Konosuke announcing in 1932 a 250-year plan to implement his vision for the company that would become Panasonic

According to eMarketer, "Marketers must connect business goals to social media objectives."

What would Matsushita Konosuke's social media objectives and strategy have been given his business goals?

In Making the List - Branding on Twitter, Z. Kelly Queijo quotes Ryan Paugh, Co-Founder and Director of Community, Brazen Careerist, Inc.:  “Twitter Lists are a great way to bring like-minded people together. If a brand wants to create a community around their product then a Twitter List is a great way to help make that happen.”

We're a company on a mission. We've got business goals, a brand and a product, and a vision for community. If a Twitter List can make things happen - our #1 social media objective - then we're making Twitter Lists. 

Handshake 2.0 isn't exactly a product, but it's an enterprise of Handshake Media, Incorporated, part of whose vision is the creation of affluent communities through regional economic development.  Our current contribution to that development is social media public relations and marketing initiatives.  We've specified how we think a regional social media economic deveopment initiative would look and work.

We've got a pretty simple logic to our vision.  The better companies do and the better individuals in those companies do, the more people they can hire.  Handshake 2.0 showcases companies, and people in companies, to help them do very well.

We've started "collecting" the like-minded - the corporate leadership - in our region in Twitter Lists.  We're tossing our stone into the tap water pool beginning in Blacksburg, Virginia and the surrounding New River Valley of Virginia.  The "where" doesn't matter, however. Any region, industry, organization or collaborative could do the same or for other purposes. Let the ripples begin!

Our Twitter List logic is simple, too.  People do business with people they know.  Our Handshake 2.0 Twitter Lists introduce the members of the corporate leadership on Twitter in one locale to each other.  The existence of the List is an opportunity to introduce this leadership to others on Twitter.  We know each other a bit better than before. 

Let's do business.

Let's work on that mission.

Handshake 2.0's Twitter List of Company Founders

Handshake 2.0's Twitter List of Business, Company, and Corporate Executives

Are you on our lists?  If you're not, please let us know to add you!  Please DM us at Handshake 2.0 on Twitter.

***

Graphic: Z. Kelly Queijo

Remember when Mark Schaefer, author of the blog {grow}, wrote in The World's First "Authenticity Policy"? with regard to Handshake 2.0's social media authenticity policy, "As far as I know, this is the first published, legally-validated 'authenticity policy'"?

That "legally-validated" was done by Ken Maready.

An entrepreneur himself as the founder of his own law firm, Venture Counsel, Ken has joined Hutchison Law Group and will head its new office in Blacksburg, Virginia. 

I was introduced to Ken Maready by Allan Tsang of 88owls, a fellow member of VT KnowledgeWorks. I met Helga Leftwich at VT KnowledgeWorks when she served on a panel to help member company founders practice their pitches to potential investors.  When I saw Helga Leftwich quoted in the Hutchison Law news release on Ken Maready joining the firm, I had to find out more about the these "It's who you know" connections.

I emailed Helga Leftwich questions and she kindly replied.

When did you first meet Ken Maready - was it at VT KnowledgeWorks? - and what about him and/or his expertise gave you the idea that he might be a good colleague?

We were fortunate to have Ken work with us at Hutchison Law Group for several years before he served as General Counsel at venture-backed Integrian, Inc. and then later moved to Blacksburg.  Ken's practice has always focused on representing entrepreneurial and growth companies and he has developed special expertise in working with venture capital transactions and venture-backed companies.  As we made the decision to open an office in Virginia, Ken was an ideal and natural choice to once again join us and oversee our office in Blacksburg. We are delighted to have him as a colleague and as part of the HLG team.  
 
What characteristics do you think might be distinctive and necessary for an attorney for technology-based start-ups?

Working with technology-based start-ups requires a special knowledge of the unique issues that start-ups face, so it's important to work with an attorney who has significant experience in this area. An understanding of the company's technology and/or industry is also useful.  Equally valuable in my view is that your attorney be someone who has a strong network of connections that are relevant to the needs of a start-up - for example, someone who can help connect you with potential advisors or investors, or additions to your company's management team or board of directors.  In my experience, entrepreneurs are also looking for someone who can combine sound legal knowledge with common sense advice and practical problem-solving. Ken epitomizes these qualities, and perhaps most importantly, he shares with all of us at Hutchison Law Group a love and passion for what we do and a desire to help not only our clients but also our entrepreneurial communities as a whole. 

***

Ah, that "strong network of connections" explains "It's who you know."  Online, "It's still who you know," and Ken Maready knows plenty about the online legal concerns of start-ups, entrepreneurs and technology companies.  In fact, Ken Maready's "Legal Concerns for the Web 2.0 Business" is forthcoming in volume one of the new series, Enterprise 2.0: How Technology, E-Commerce, and Web 2.0 Are Transforming Business Virtually, edited by Tracy Tuten, Ph.D.  The Enterprise 2.0 series is scheduled for publication by Praeger Publishers, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Company.

VT KnowledgeWorks is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, the parent company of Handshake 2.0. 

So do Forbes Magazine and Z. Kelly Queijo, who shared news of this cool tool with Handshake 2.0.

From Forbes:

"You'll see a 2009 ad viewer at first; that's because our agreements with the advertising firms providing the ads say that we can't post their 2010 ads until after the fourth quarter of this year's Super Bowl. When the fourth quarter ends, the embeddable player...will automatically switch to show 2010 ads, and a voting module will activate and allow users to decide on the best and worst Super Bowl ads."

Enjoy!

You must have Adobe Flash Player 9 or higher installed to view this content

In honor of Super Bowl XLIV, here are my Top 10 references to the Number 44:

1. 44 Chili Recipes for Super Bowl XLIV
2. 44 Magnum - Dirty Harry's Gun of choice (IMDB Dirty Harry/Clint Eastwood Trivia)
3. Apex, NC, 44th Best Places to Live (Fortune/CNN Money)
4. Ernst & Young, 44th Best Company to Work For by Fortune Magazine/CNN Money
5. Reed College, 44th in America's Best Colleges by Forbes
6. Vicks 44 
7. Dallas Clark | TE | Indianapolis Colt #44
8. Heath Evans | FB | New Orleans Saints #44
9. 44 best football movies (via LA Times and SportsInMovies)
10. Barack Obama, 44th President

Do you have a favorite #44 list item? Feel free to add it in the comments section below.

Z. Kelly Queijo is the founder of SmartCollegeVisit and a frequent contributor to Handshake 2.0. You're invited to follow SmartCollegeVisit on Twitter, @collegevisit.

I was such a weary tourist, part of a group taking in the entirety of Italy in five days, when we walked into a glass-maker's shop in Murano, an island off the coast of Venice. What happened next, I've tried to summarize in text, but the poem I wrote soon after is what is.  I've included it at the bottom of this post if you're interested.  My experience in Murano provides the context for my awe at finding a Murano chandelier at Beaux Arts Galleria, a showroom and gallery of museum-quality home furnishings and decor in the historic district of Blacksburg, Virginia.

 
Beaux Arts Galleria, a showroom and gallery of museum-quality home furnishings and decor in the historic district of Blacksburg, Virginia, is hosting an open house.

Beaux Arts Galleria Open House
Thursday, February 11, 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
R.s.v.p. 540-443-0003

Beaux Arts Galleria is located at 105 East Roanoke Street in Blacksburg, Virginia.  Here are directions.

Here's are the full details and invitation to the Beaux Arts Galleria Open House.  Here's a story on Handshake 2.0's founder Anne Clelland and Beaux Arts Galleria Accounting Manager Mary Harder, more about the showroom from The Roanoke Times: Beaux Arts prepares for unveiling, and Beaux Arts Galleria on Handshake 2.0.

***

Beaux Arts Galleria is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, the parent company of Handshake 2.0.

***

Quickly, Before Crystals Form
by Anne Giles Clelland

We are patient as we watch you, we pilgrims to Murano.
We have seen you before.  You are any man from Venice:
black-eyed, stubble-faced, wool-vested, curly-haired,
leather shoe propped against a column, cigarette in hand.

Your profile is a Roman coin - your brow and nose
jut towards the coin’s rim.  We suspect you were hired
right from the Square for today’s exhibit.  Your father sired
just the look we need.  We think about a group photo.

You hoist a knob of molten glass from the earthen furnace
and wave your blowing iron to keep from spilling
viscous ooze to the floor.  Such an amorphous, hot lump
you hold, a primordial syrup of sand, limestone and potash.

The glass glows, writhes, spatters orange.
You roll it into fiery muscles, let it hang limp
as hair.  Sea air dampens the walls, clings
to our faces.  Rust flakes from your hands.

Glass squeals like nails across our skin and we shift our feet.
Fading, the glass is colorless, transparent
as water, and we wonder if the group before got to see green
instead.  Cristallo, you say to us, and lean

on a stool.  Steadying the glass, you take up iron tongs.
They enter the glass like forceps, and you draw out
straining forelegs, perfect muzzle, mane, withers, belly, hock
and we groan.  Our spines shift as you pull a broad, long

back.  Tears course a woman’s cheeks.  We see through
the glass.  You curve hooves, ears and eyes with a pontil,
crack the horse free and hold it aloft with your tongs.
We want to have the horse.  We want to be you.