What Color is Your Parachute is the most successful career book in history, selling 10M+ copies over the past 40 years. It's in the Library of Congress as one of the 25 most influential books of all time. The author, Richard Bolles, updates Parachute every year - he says he's written 40 books with the same title! The Parachute methodology can meet the needs of an even larger online community - including the 75M baby boomers entering the period in their lives "formerly known as retirement." Milsal McCaull is helping the company with pre-launch activities, market validation and more.

We're pleased to welcome 15Five to the Milsal + McCaull family. Founder David Hassell has a clear vision for changing the way information moves in organizations.

With 15Five, important knowledge flows where it needs to- without the friction of most reporting systems. 15 minutes to complete, 5 to read- and you're in the know.

15Five is in closed beta, but they've already gotten rave reviews at LAUNCH 2012 and other places.  Here's nice review of the functionality by an independent observer.

We're using 15Five in house and loving it, and are thrilled to be able to work with the organization to help it grow.

Partner Christine McCaull will host TEDxSF Big Blue: A Very Special Evening on the Oceans and the premier of Capacitor's OKEANOS, April 12 at the Fort Mason Center. Also announces special performance April 13 by TED Music Director, Thomas Dolby.

The event asks provocative questions: What if liquid robots could completely change the way we understand ocean currents? Sniff for oil leaks? Why is our whole conservation paradigm false? How can we change it? What does a photographer see when he stays in the water in the remotest area for a really long time?

San Francisco, CA, March 29, 2012 --(PR.com)-- TEDxSF Salons announces the availability of tickets for its sold out event, Big Blue: A Very Special Evening on the Oceans and the Premier of Capacitor’s OKEANOS. The event, held at San Francisco’s Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason Center, is April 12 at 5 p.m.

Exclusively for our clients, advisory board and keen thinkers, our monthly F2F (Founder to Founder, Friend to Friend?) gathering brings people together to have real dialogues over the questions that keep entrepreneurs up at night.

Direct conversation, open communication, confidentiality (oh, and good wine).

First Thursday of the month.

Learn from each other.

Next gathering: May 3rd 2012, 4 to 6 pm.

Contact us to join our tribe.

When people have a great product, they often assume that channel partners, resellers and affiliates will jump at the chance to sell it for them- often underestimating what it takes to get channel sales up and running, to maintain them well and to make sure they bear the promised fruit.

Here are some questions we find helpful to explore before counting too heavily on channel projections:

Once a year, TEDMED holds a "grand gathering" where leaders from all sectors of society come together for three and a half days. They explore the promise of technology and the potential of human achievement. This unique event combines dazzling celebration, high-powered learning and unforgettable theater.

TEDMED is the only place where a Nobel Prize winning neurobiologist has a conversation with a four-star general… where an opera singer (with a double lung transplant) chats with a NASA space physician… and where a ballet dancer talks to an exoskeleton designer. Together, they weave a tapestry that combines the best thinking from every field and creates infinite new possibilities.

TEDMED has no agenda and no policy prescriptions. Instead, we seek to serve the nation -- and the world -- by creating a safe place where people with very different ideas can come together to talk, to learn and to celebrate the amazing world we live in.

Taylor Milsal is a Director with TEDMED, responsible for creating strategic sponsorships to enhance the year-round efforts of the organization.

Taylor Milsal
415-563-1300

Milsal + McCaull creates strategic partnerships on behalf of the world's game-changing technologies.

Exclusively for our clients, advisory board and keen thinkers, our monthly F2F (Founder to Founder, Friend to Friend?) gathering brings people together to have real dialogues over the questions that keep entrepreneurs up at night.

Direct conversation, open communication, confidentiality (oh, and good wine).

First Thursday of the month.

Learn from each other.

Next gathering: April 5th, 2012, 4 to 6 pm.

Contact us to join our tribe.

We like moving fast and we like real data.

We've found success with methodologies that combine quantitative and qualitative research with good common sense.  We use these to get real feedback from people on their needs, their responses to your product or service offering, and to your message.

If you're a young venture, and want to get feedback on a new product, service or message, we like the following approach:

Round 1:  Qualitative feedback (Week 1-2)

• What do you want to know?
• Who do you want to know it from (hypothetical target markets)?
• Design and write survey.
• Craft call script.
• Set up collection tools.
• Set up screen sharing if demo'ing.
• Start with 100 calls to the kinds of people you want to sell to.
• Do targeted social media outreach (in and outside of your network).
• Secure 10 to 20 yeses to take a survey.
• Conduct interviews and record deep qualitative conversations. Listen deeply.
• Reflect on the data and summarize findings and patterns.

Round 2: Quantitative feedback (Week 2-3)

• Design and implement a second, shorter, online survey based on results from 1.
• Invite qualified candidates to complete a self-service online form.
• Separate candidates into one pool incentivized and one pool unincentivized.
• Analyze data.

Round 3: Test lead generation (Week 3-4)

• Design test copy and creative for most promising markets based on feedback.
• Place small dollar amount bets on ad and social networks.
• Compare responses
• Project results and payback

This means moving quickly and being willing to take some risks.

We find this approach to be a low-cost and high-impact way to get a deeper, more objective view of how to scale your approach to the market, and get some indicators of early metrics.

Can we help?  Learn how we work with companies to help them grow.  Contact us.

After years in the lab and testing in the field, geothermal home heating just became scalable.

ActGEO's innovative and patented small footprint installations bring down the cost, eliminate the mess, and take away the permitting and process issues associated with prior iterations of ground source heating- opening an alternative solution in an immense market.

Milsal + McCaull is pleased to welcome ActGEO to our client network.

Taulia Inc. is offering global companies something new:  a way to turn their corporate treasury into a supplier bank in a risk free, hassle free manner- and earn 20% APR instead of .3% on t-bills.

By offering a SAP certified add on, Taulia gives Procurement and Treasury access to not only a contract's agreed-on discount terms, but to additional sliding-scale, early-payment discounts from suppliers who find that getting paid earlier is a lot less expensive than factoring receivables or taking out a working capital loan, particularly in certain regions of the world. This is called Dynamic Discounting, a concept Taulia is pioneering. Paystream has just issued a White Paper on the subject, available on the Taulia site.

In addition, Taulia offers free e-Invoicing to SAP, with no charge to suppliers or buyers for the service, through a secure customer branded portal- and a proven supplier onramping process.

Milsal + McCaull is pleased to welcome the Taulia team to our client network.  We are glad to have you on board!