Lots to report, I’m gonna do it Marcoullier-style and keep it as concise as possible:

SXSW

• Net2NO <3 SXSW road trip rocked. See pics and wrapup. Thanks to all sponsors. Video coming soon.
• Our Outsourcing 2.0 Panel went great. Not as many fireworks as we expected, but good discussion. Thanks to Sandeep, Andrea and Matt for all their hard work and to a great audience (200+) for turning out. Read more on Twitter.
• Loved getting the VC dialogue going with Taylor Davidson. He ran a great panel that I missed and is a thought leader on where funding is going. I’m paying attention.
• Had a blast getting the post-panel jitters out with Mike Bonifer. It was a game changer for my afternoon.
• Learned a ton about co-working and building earning whuffie. Connected w/ co-working space catalysts in Tony in NY, Chris in Phoenix, & Matt in Houston.
• Loved connecting with the LA & SF tech scenes at the LA BBQ and their panel. Thanks to Gerard, Sloane (welcome to NOLA), Andrew & Paige.
• The NOLA party @ Lucky Lounge was hot. DJ Othertempo and Austin Knights Brass band killed and Larimer ran a tight show.

IDEACorps

• Idea Village just hosted six teams of MBA students working with local entrepreneurs on spring break.
• I was honored to be invited as a panelist and sat alongside some very invigorating folks.
• Had a great conversation with Robbie Vitrano about the need for a mentorship-driven seed capital fund. More to come.
• Congrats to Feelgoodz, Project 30-90, and Naked Pizza on all they accomplished.

Upcoming – WordCamp NOLA

• John Ramirez has been working night & day to put this conference together. He’s had quite a vision and is pulling it off.
• 11 days left and only 34 seats left to go. Get tickets now!
• We’ve lined up some great presenters and panelists, check out the lineup.
• Ben Huh from FAILblog and LOLcats will be here. Nuf said.

More Upcoming

• Tritico is getting the steam behind an upcoming BarCamp. Let’s make this happen.
• We’re going to do a pre- French Quarter Fest bloody mary geek breakfast with Eric Marcoullier when he is in town April 18th. Stay tuned.
• Tiffany Starnes is getting Social Media Club New Orleans off the ground. Interested? Hit her up.
• Shameless Plug – Launch Pad will be opening in May. Sign up now for 50% off first month.

That’s it from Voodoo HQ. Lots brewing. Come back for a fresh cup soon.

Looking for something to do tomorrow night? Love New Orleans, but live in the Bay area? Well today is your lucky day.

The Idea Village will be doing a presentation at the Googleplex titled “New Orleans Uncovered: Revitalization, Reinvention and You.”

Tim Williamson, Lauren Baum from Idea Village, and Robbie Vitrano from Trumpet, have traveled out to California to spread some NOLA love and tell our story. Lucky dukkys.

In case you weren’t aware, the 504ward business competition has been supported by Google and the video portion of the submission is a YouTube video. Just two more days to get your app in.

Details after the jump.

Also:

If you’re not able to jet out to San Fran to catch this presentation, why not catch a great presentation by our very search engine guru, Christopher Skinner from MakeBuzz. He’ll be presenting at Net2NO meeting tonight, so be sure to be there if you can’t jet off to SF. RSVP now.

Please join members of Google.org and The Black Googlers Network, for aninteractive discussion about the untold story of New Orleans as Google proudly welcomes The Idea Village to the Googleplex in Mountain View at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, December 3rd for a talk entitled “New Orleans Uncovered: Revitalization, Reinvention and You.” A hosted reception will immediately follow.

The Idea Village is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to sow the seeds of change through innovation and entrepreneurship in the New Orleans region by advocating for a culture of innovation and providing strategy, talent and resources to high impact ventures.They arespearheading innovative change in the trenches of New Orleans, a great American city recently named by BusinessWeek as one of the best places to ride out the recession. Challenges in New Orleans are not unique but if they can be solved there, they will pay dividends to our global community for generations to come.

Dozens of Googlers, including members of Google.org and BGN, were fortunate enough to assist with the development and launch of their 504ward $200,00 Business Plan Competition launched on September 25, 2008. This competition offers$100,000 cash and $100,000 in professional resources to the entrepreneur who can best retain the 3,000+ young people who have flocked to New Orleans with dual aspirations of sparking social change and advancing their careers in the living laboratory of post-Katrina New Orleans.

While on the West Coast, The Idea Village is inspiring a network of innovative talent to contribute to the reinvention of a great American city and providing tangible, immediate opportunities to directly engage in this historical moment.

LOCATION:
Google Headquarters
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, California 94043

MAP:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1600+Amphitheatre+Pkwy,+Mountain+View,+California+94043&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=60.54737,111.445312&ie=UTF8&z=17&g=1600+Amphitheatre+Pkwy,+Mountain+View,+California+94043&iwloc=addr

CHECK-IN:
Please check-in at the Lobby of Building 41 starting at 5:30 p.m. A Registration Table will be set up to check-in guests.

RSVP:
Please RSVP Tara Canobbio, tcanobbio@google.com by Tuesday, December 2nd

This event is open to invitees and their guests interested in the recovery and development of the Greater New Orleans area since Hurricane Katrina. We hope you are able to join us for this important discussion and find out how YOU can change the world – starting in New Orleans.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the first night of Startup School last Thursday. It was a great event and I think everyone is pretty jazzed about the 504ward competition and the enthusiasm of the participants who are all going to be entering great biz plans in it.

We had a great lineup of speakers: Me, John Laurie from UNO, Richard Montgomery from VCE Capital, Chris Reade from Carrollton Technology Partners, and the inimitable local film auteur Ben Reece from Deltree.

Some highlights:

• My presentation is embedded below, but I focused on finding and communicating the reason your business needs to be in New Orleans.
• John emphasized the need not to work backwards. You really should have your whole plan done before you write your exec summary. Bios, not resumes. Financial highlights, but not full pro-forma for the exec summary.
• Richard spoke to the difference between what he views as a fundable company, and the goals of 504ward. He is looking for high-growth companies that can do $50 mil in sales in 10 years. While those companies are a fit for 504ward, so are sustainable “lifestyle” companies, that generally aren’t able to attract VC capital.
• Chris got everyone fired up with turning their plan into reality. He spoke of the pitfalls of expensive office space and friends as partners. He also recommended an LLC for most companies and talked about filing online through the Secretary of State’s website. He recommended having a good lawyer to make sure you have a good operating agreement if you have partners.
• Ben got people thinking about their video submission. It was agreed that everyone should do one because its an opportunity to forge an emotional connection with the panel of judges.

We’ve prepared an extensive collection of business plan resources and added them to our wiki.

On Friday, Jessica White of the Idea Village invited me to join her and Leslie Jacobs who is behind 504ward on the Garland Robinette show to talk about the entreprenuerial community here in New Orleans. You can listen to the podcast of the interview online on the WWL site.

Idea Village asked me to emphasize the following points with regards to what they are looking for in 504ward submissions. I wanted to post them here for anyone who wasn’t able to be there:

• You must be a sustainable business
• You must prove how you retain the 23 – 34 year old demographic
• The competition is not about attracting new people but about the retain the people currently in New Orleans

So, thanks to everyone for making it such a great event. The second part of the workshop series is this Saturday, Nov 22 9am-noon. We’ll be doing “speed dating” work-shopping of business plans. More details on the wiki. If you’re not registered yet, sign up and attend.