michael_friedenberg
President and CEO

Are you keeping ahead of IT industry trends?

analysis
Jul 4, 20122 mins

Social, mobile and other consumer technologies are inspiring venture capitalists to invest and changing the landscape of IT. Are you paying attention?

During my recent travels, I met with a leading angel investor and we talked about the amazing roll that the technology sector is on right now. Consider the incredible amounts of investment flowing into companies like Facebook, Jive, LinkedIn, Instagram, Yammer, Box, and DropBox. Or spend a few days at events like DEMO (our Silicon Valley-based conference for emerging technologies), and you’ll see why investors are so enthusiastically drawn to the technology startup community.

I asked my investor friend what he considers the “special sauce” that convinces him to buy into a technology startup. He replied with five simple words: social, mobile, geolocation, gaming, and commerce (meaning both the online and mobile varieties). If a company does three of these things in concert, it gets his attention. Four of them and he’s seriously interested. Five and it’s guaranteed his checkbook will be open.

What is so fascinating about venture capitalists is that they always seem to be ahead of the market. How do they catch those waves so early? How do they know a certain company will be a hit while others will fizzle? My friend said it’s not necessarily about the company or its leadership team, but about the trends themselves. In today’s market, the business trends of tomorrow are being created by what’s happening now in the social and consumer ecosystems.

michael_friedenberg

Michael Friedenberg is CEO and president of IDG Communications, an IDG company that develops strategic media properties and peer advisory services. Appointed in March 2009, Friedenberg oversees IDGs award-winning brands, websites, products and services for CIO, CIO Executive Council, CFOworld, Computerworld, CSO, DEMO, Industry Standard, InfoWorld, ITWorld, and Network World. With 20 years in the information technology (IT) media industry, Friedenberg is widely regarded as a dynamic leader and expert who keenly understands the media and technology industrys evolving needs. In 2010, Friedenberg was inducted into the min Sales Hall of Fame and has been named to BtoB magazines Whos Who in business media for eight consecutive years. Previously, Friedenberg advanced from United Business Media sales management positions to vice president and publisher of InformationWeek, and later vice president and group publisher of the InformationWeek Media Network and co-founder of Optimize magazine. As VP/group publisher, Friedenberg set the vision, strategy, and positioning of multiple brands across print, online, events, and research services. Friedenbergs career also includes work with Cardinal Business Media and vertical publications at HP Professional, Midrange Systems, and DEC Professional. Outside the walls of IDG, Friedenberg is a source for other media outlets on issues of media, marketing, and technology. He is widely regarded as an expert and regularly quoted about the technology and media industry by publications including The New York Times, BtoB magazine, The Write News, Folio magazine, and min. He is also a frequent guest speaker at many industry conferences as well as user events for companies such as the Federal Reserve Board, DigiDay, IBM, HP, Oracle, CA, Microsoft, Avaya, Infosys and Fujitsu. Friedenberg graduated with a B.S. in business administration from the University of Delaware.

More from this author