AlwaysOn Conference – A Report From the Field

By: Paul Wingate

The AlwaysOn Network - Founder Tony Perkins explains its beginnings:
“The AlwaysOn Network is transforming the media business by providing its readers with an open and participatory editorial environment. Borrowing from the underground blogging and social networking traditions, AO was launched in 2003 [founded in 2002] and has emerged as a leader in the “open media” revolution. The network’s content focuses on the sweet spots in the technology markets where innovation is disrupting behavior and creating new business opportunities.”

I am recharging from the thrilling and stimulating experience and from sorting images and memories gathered at a dazzling voyage into perceptions of tomorrow at the 7th AlwaysOn Stanford Summit, a gathering of about 370 people including investors, Vc's, innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs and various media: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/32096

For the last 2 years the meeting took place at the new and plush Arrillaga Alumni Center on the Stanford Campus.

The everyday news machine tells us things will get worse, but at a slowing rate; an indication of a market bottoming and a turn around that will occur in 6, or 12 or more months.

While that fact is recognized and briefly noted at the recent Stanford Summit it is only incidental to what remains key and in focus: Many brilliant and passionate people with compelling, disruptive ideas and technologies are full of hope, enthusiasm and insights and will change the future... and many of those people were in the room. Many others were cited in the AlwaysOn list of expected winners in the marketplace.

The Stanford Summit has centered attention on media, video, marketing, dot.com and communication businesses, and for this Summit included some Green-tech again and added education.

They announced the AO Global 250 Winners and had representatives from several of the winning companies from these different sectors:

Cloud and Infrastructure

Consumer Internet

Digital Education – new

Digital Media

Enabling Tools and Devices

Greentech

SaaS and Enterprise

Wireless

The AO Global 250 is their most distinguished annual competition and represents their selection of the best of emerging innovators and disrupters from all the technology sectors they cover. This year's overall winner, Quantcast, joins previous top picks that included companies such as Google, last year's Twitter, and salesforce.com. They get it right again and again.

The panels and interviews, talks, and business summaries by startup companies' CEO's on stage are non-stop, but so are the scores of meetings of 2 to several people taking place outside the lecture room.

Some of these include plans to fund innovation following discoveries. Kleiner-Perkins and other big players are at a smorgasboard of ideas and start-ups

For a look into trends in the green world a panel titled, “Who will be the Next Bill Gates of Greentech?” introduced the very focused Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials http://www.seriousmaterials.com and a greentech winner from the East coast GoingGreen event held earlier in Boston – Andrew Perlman, CEO of Great Point Energy http://www.greatpointenergy.com/ourtechnology.php.

The Myth of Clean Coal

Kevin Surace addresses the over-consumption of energy by the built world (he uses a high figure of 52%), and plans to conserve Quads of it with innovative building materials. Andrew Perlman's company converts coal to methane - 2 atoms of carbon plus 2 molecules of water (as steam) are catalyzed into 1 molecule each of methane and CO2. This could be a very good profit model since a million BTUs methane sells for about $1.25 more than a MMbtu of coal and the conversion only cost pennies. Natural gas demand is increasing rapidly and it burns cleanly.

I have not yet figured the energy cost to convert 2 atoms of carbon plus steam to one molecule of methane plus one of CO2. Coal contains some hydrogen bonded in, has about 512 Kj/mole vs. 810 Kj/mole for methane. The carbon is about 75% of the mole weight of CH4. The carbon in coal varies from high 90% in anthracite ? to ?? in lignite (dry weights).

I presume some coal is burned for process heat to produce steam, more energy is used to compress the gas to inject into high pressure pipelines (640 psi was mentioned for a 14” utility line). What part of that energy is offset by the cost of moving coal to combustion plants? Vinod Khosla said at a solar conference that 70% and more of all rail traffic was moving coal. Burning coal is dirty. Does making methane from coal and energy solve anything? I don't know, but I will research this technology for a later article. What happens to the CO2 at the conversion site? IF there were a technology to sequester it it might be easily redirected.

Vinod Khosla was interviewed for a “fireside Chat”. He is happy to be invested in greentech. Although he says it is difficult to pick winners, he agrees with most that the cleantech energy sector will be enormous for years to come.
Tony Perkins, the founder and CEO of AlwaysOn, seems to be casual as the party host. Unpretentious, chatting with 100s, a little nervous from concern about success of his gathering and tired from preparation and greetings, but simple and lucid when weaving the program together and in a final interview and good summation which was captured and posted by Renee Blodgett, CEO and Publisher of MagicSauce Media and www.weblogtheworld.com

See the video here: http://www.weblogtheworld.com/united-kingdom/tony-perkins-alwayson-2009-whats-next/#more-2831.

Tony Perkins staunchly believes that private enterprise will do best without govt interference and manifestly states his position. He includes giants in Silicon Valley development as his friends and acquaintances. In “his world” things may be bumpy, there will be surprises, but progress is still rocketing forward in many fields – media, education and growing ever bigger – GREENtech/cleantech.

There is NO shortage of positivism, ideas, invention, interest, brilliance, and hope. Money is being directed to real companies and a significant part of the future was being designed and planned at the Stanford Summit and in the heads and with the vision and commitment of some 350 people, making connections to accelerate change.

A conference held in Davis CA in May of 2007 was the first AlwaysOn conference dedicated to Greentech; entirely focused on clean energy, conservation, solar, clean-tech, etc. (Everything GreenMotion readers are interested in?) UC Davis, CA was promoting itself as a clean-green research Center.

Last year at the 6th Annual Stanford Summit Tony Perkins introduced several sessions devoted to Green businesses and cleantech. They were well attended and pertinent. In September, 2008 there was the second Going Green event. It was packed and exciting

What is next? There will be a repeat of GoingGreen West at Cavallo Point in Marin on Sept 14-16, 2009 - http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/31788

Followed by the AlwaysOn March on Washington, DC, held on October 19-21, 2009 : http://alwayson.goingon.com/ecom/productview/32665

If you are an innovator with a business and looking for investors, or if you are an investor looking for emerging trends and good investments, or a media person following the latest AlwaysOn events could be perfect for you. If your focus is on sustainability, greentech/cleantech then the coming-soon event at Cavallo Point will be rewarding even if only ½ as good as last year. It will probably be better.

There is a list from an earlier event in Boston (2008 green 100 - http://alwayson.goingon.com/configure/customize/1) and a larger list from this event.

Mine is a delicious exhilaration – similar to that gained from a long walk in the high country accompanied by some blustery afternoon rain squalls with rainbows amid stunning views.

Innovation is healthy and booming. Expect much.