By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

I met with Growth Point Technology Partners Managing Director, Laurie Yoler just 12 days after the historic bailout of the US financial system was signed into law. She’s a seasoned investor in emerging technology, a specialist in clean tech and serves on the board of Tesla Motors, where she was an angel investor. Laurie gives a fascinating insight into the psyche of venture capitalists at this historic time and explains why she remains optimistic. We also explore these questions:

How long will it take before the market stabilizes?

How will the IPO, Merger & Aquisition and private placement markets be affected by the financial turmoil? What about those frothy valuations?

What clean tech trends have emerged this year?

What’s hot in clean tech and why is clean tech in Europe ahead of the US?

Listen to part I of this Fresh Dialogue

Download or listen to this lively Fresh Dialogues interview

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Download Laurie Yoler’s Fresh Dialogue Part I

Check back soon for Part II when Laurie discusses her early involvement in Tesla Motors and the company’s role in clean tech history.

by Alison van Diggelen, Host of Fresh Dialogues

I interviewed LinkedIn director, April Kelly, at the Women In Technology International (WITI) conference in Silicon Valley.  She’s a former PayPal executive who describes herself as an effervescent leader and energetic coach. I asked her:

- why is it worth joining a (biz) social networking site like LinkedIn?

- tips on building our brand and optimizing our online profile?

- how can you rebrand yourself and build a new career using LinkedIn tools? (April has some great ideas for you if you’ve lost your job, or are looking for a new opportunities)

She outlines how to use “recommendations” and “answer” forums to build your reputation and establish your expertise online. Checkout her online profile if you need inspiration.

Listen to this seven minute Fresh Dialogue:

Download or listen to this lively Fresh Dialogues interview

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Download April Kelly’s Fresh Dialogue

Just back from WITI‘S 14th annual Women and Tech Summit in Silicon Valley (Oct 12-15th) and the potent energy is still with me. There is something incredibly empowering and energizing about gathering hundreds of go-getting women in a conference hall. Wish you could bottle that energy.

WITI’S motto is “no woman stands alone” and just how apt this is,  given the current financial meltdown and shaky economic climate. We had senior executives announcing their personal emails from the podium, others inviting young entrepreneurs to get in touch after their talks, a real feeling of “let me help you get where you want to get sista.”

From the impressive keynotes of Cathleen Benko, Vice Chairman at Deloitte LLP and Sandy Carter, VP at IBM; the success strategies of Life Coach Kathleen Hill to the Clean Tech investment experts like Laurie Yoler and Marianne Wu, each one inspired and energized a packed auditorium.

I had the opportunity to interview several outstanding panel members for Fresh Dialogues, including LinkedIn’s April Kelly, GrowthPoint Technology Partner’s Laurie Yoler (who’s been involved with Tesla Motors from the early days) and Mary Vincent of Green Solutions. Check back soon to hear their take on the current financial crisis, how to leverage Web 2.0 to help your business, and one woman’s leap from Sun Microsystems to entrepreneurship and how global warming helped inspire that leap.

Here’s an extract from my interview at Streaming Media West about online video.  September 24, 2008.

Alison van Diggelen: What is it about online video that’s making it so attractive these days? […] Can you expand a little bit on that and the kind of feedback you are getting from your customers?

Alison Jeske from drugstore.com: Definitely when people see products in action they get very excited about it. In the prestige beauty world we get to see exciting new designers like Vena Cava showcased in fashion week, we get to see Oscar Blandi doing “How can I get that second day hair look”, we have Tina Turnbow (our fabulous make-up artist that we work with) showing people how to take a day look to a night look. Those things on the prestige beauty site get our customers really excited. On the drugstore.com side, it’s very new for us. We have just been introducing some funnier videos showcasing toys and games for the holiday, so we’re definitely getting some wordings and interesting feedback from our customers on the drugstore.com side.

Alison: So you’re getting a lot of feedback from your customers?

AJ: It’s early launch, early indications are real positive but on the drugstore.com we’ve had videos for about 2 weeks now, and it’s still real early. We’re measuring impressions we’re getting from the customers and definitely some of the feedback. It’s early to tell on order impact and conversion but it looks promising.

Alison: Do you feel you’re really on the cutting-edge of this, taking videos to the market?

AJ: I think we’re definitely in the early adopters – I think there is a lot of people doing it really well out there – eBags is a great example, REI is doing video. The real mavericks in this that have doing it for quite a while are QVC and the Home Shopping Network , they really kind of started translating their TV shows into the different medium. We’re excited to see where this can take us.

Alison: What are your expectations for this? Do you see being your main focus getting video streaming online?

AJ: We see this as mandatory going forward. Customers are demanding it, and we want to offer all the different ways to help a customer make a choice about a product that they want. We see this as a requirement to stay in the game.

Alison: What key message are you bringing today to the Video Commerce panel (you have a panel of four talking about the big picture)?

AJ: I think some of the key messages are that we still need to measure success. We’re excited about this opportunity but we still have to measure, and we’re still near the early stages. The other thing about video is that it’s that next evolution of going from product reviews where customers can describe right how they feel about a certain product and why they like it. Video brings reviews up to another level where we’re getting to the next evolution in the product  life-cycle.

To find out more about the conference, and listen to the Fresh Dialogues interview click here

by Alison van Diggelen, Host of Fresh Dialogues

Fresh Dialogues talks to Alison Jeske of Beauty.com about the use of online video in marketing products to women. What is the optimum length of video and what gets women engaged and excited about their products?

Click here for the audio

Download or listen to this lively Fresh Dialogues interview

We welcome feedback at FreshDialogues.com, click on the Contact Tab

Download Alison Jeske’s Fresh Dialogues

For a link to the transcript, click here

Streaming Media West arrived in Silicon Valley last week and assembled an impressive crowd of business and technology gurus. I had the pleasure of meeting some of the pioneers of new media production, including JD Lasica, Co-Founder of OurMedia.org, Sarah Szalavitz, Co-Founder & CEO of 7Robot, producer of Zaproot, a bite sized news show about the Green revolution. I was most impressed with Sarah’s savvy and her claim that her show is now more popular than Discovery and Treehugger. They even landed a deal last year to get paid for content. Sadly, she says, that window is now closed: the days of getting paid for content are over (for now at least).

So how can you make money on the web? The panel of New Media Production: Building an Independent Media Brand outlined two distinct business models. The first: find your niche, build your product with top quality content, grow your brand, build a community and get them involved: then you have a valuable community worth advertising to. OR, do like Will Coghlan, Co-Founder of Hudson Street Media use the web to showcase your work, build your reputation and use it as a calling card to open doors to sponsorship or VC funding. He’s still at it after 200 episodes of Political Lunch, a compelling lesson in tenacity right there.

Of special interest to Women’s Radio listeners was Adriana Gasgoigne, Director of Corporate Communications at hi5. and Co-Founder of Girls in Tech. This experienced host and vlogger (video blogger) can be found on Bubblicious, MeeVee, and TheWeakSpot. She emphasized the importance of networking and cultivating mentors for women working in new media technology.

I also spoke with Alison Jeske, Director of Product Management at Beauty.com and Drugstore.com where she’s using online video clips to drive traffic and conversion rates for her products. EBags and REI are already well in the game. Listen to this short interview to find out who is leading the field in this area; the optimum length of video clips and why she thinks this is a mandatory marketing tool for any business today.

Fun to see the Fresh Dialogues podcast picked up by the VideoRetailer website. Word certainly gets around fast!

Talking heads who shout and lie dominate television “news,” but after Alison van Diggelen gets a taste of civil discourse at a local debate, she sees politics as it should be.

Host: Alison van Diggelen