Rensselaer Entrepreneur Network

Just in from LinkedIn:

This Friday, we will be adding several much-requested features to your group:

• Discussion forums: Simple discussion spaces for you and your members. (You can turn discussions off in your management control panel if you like.)
• Enhanced roster: Searchable list of group members.
• Digest emails: Daily or weekly digests of new discussion topics which your members may choose to receive. (We will be turning digests on for all current group members soon, and prompting them to set to their own preference.)
• Group home page: A private space for your members on LinkedIn.

We’re confident that these new features will spur communication, promote collaboration, and make your group more valuable to you and your members. We hope you can come by LinkedIn on Friday morning to check out the new functionality and get a group discussion going by posting a welcome message.

I am not sure how we can leverage this, but be sure we will try!

We now have a “group” on LinkedIn. This will allow users of LinkedIn who are members of the group to contact each other directly. Membership requires validation, so make sure you list RPI as one of your schools.

Click here to join the group. If you are not already a member of LinkedIn, you will be presented with the opportunity to join at that link as well.

Other interesting groups on LinkedIn:

• RPI Alumni Association
• RPI Alumni
• RPI Friends

Our next event will be in New York City on January 22, 2009 at the NYC Yacht Club. The keynote speaker will be John Lonski ’73, Chief Economist and Managing Director, Moody’s Investor Services. Stay tuned for more information.

Jeff Stewart, one of RPI’s serial entrepreneurs, has started yet another venure: Urgent Careers.

According to BNet: “Urgent Career today unveiled its groundbreaking service, which applies linguistic analysis to the job matching space. By utilizing linguistic technology to analyze and match sales professionals with compatible roles, Urgent Career seeks to eliminate both unnecessary hiring mistakes for growing companies and poor career choices for sales professionals.”

I originally heard about this in an article in Crain’s New York: “Despite a weak job market, two Manhattan-based tech companies that provide niche job hunting services are expanding. Urgent Career unveiled on Wednesday a new service that helps companies hire good sales people, while BountyJobs Inc., which operates a Web site that connects headhunters to employers, has raised $12 million in venture funding.”

I don’t think this is a complete list, but here are some of the companies Jeff has started:

• Square Earth
• Mimeo.com
• Monitor110
• Urgent Career

Visit Jeff’s own blog at www.urgentspeed.com.

This iteration of the REN website is obviously a blog. The intent is to share information with the Rensselaer community, especially entrepreneurially minded alumni, about starting and building technology oriented companies.

If you are interested in being a contributor to the REN blog, please send me a note. This is a community effort and will only grow if we have participation from the community.