FountainBlue

FountainBlue creates and supports a dynamic membership-based community of clean energy, high tech and life science entrepreneurs and executives in Silicon Valley and beyond. Our membership fees are $100 annually plus $5 fee in USD, payable each calendar year, and are prorated for sign-ups mid-year. Please note also that our memberships are non-transferable.

To register as a member, complete the form below, or visit http://fountainblue.shuttlepod.org/, which will take you to our membership site on Wild Apricot. Click on the membership app page on our Wild Apricot web site http://fountainblue.shuttlepod.org/membershipapp. If you'd prefer, just sign up for our free weekly mailing lists as a non-member.

See below for a list of membership benefits as well as our networking and communication policy for members.

• Expansion and Support Benefits:
• Contingency-based recruiting rates for initial search contracts.
• Search clients will also receive a one-hour-a-month of complementary consulting to support their growth and expansion (or other needs).
• Discounted strategic planning services
  
• Discounted team assessment, coaching or consulting services
  
• Career Transition Support Benefits:
• Half hour phone call with job-seekers to strategize on search objectives with follow-up e-mails to selected contacts, available once a year. Other support is available at a members-only rate of $175/hour (or a non-member rate of $200/hour).
• All members, including those in transition are respected referral partners and will be sent our job reqs, to be strategically fowarded to their networks. If referred candidates lands in the position and stays for a period of three months, the member will earn a $1500 referral fee
  
• Event Admission Benefits:
• Discounted admissions to any FountainBlue events. Although we sunsetted all of our entrepreneur events effective January 1, 2012, we continue to offer our monthly When She Speaks, women in leadership series events, and may also run other events on occasion.
  
• Discounted and free passes to partner events in Silicon Valley when available.
• Promotional Benefits:
• Members may nominate a company for our monthly 'profiles in innovation' article, part of our weekly newsletter.
• Members may nominate a nonprofit to be featured each month.
  
• Opportunity to promote events produced by other organizations within the Silicon Valley, focusing on serving early stage clean energy, high tech or life science entrepreneurs or women leaders. Regular recommendations are sent out roughly weekly to FountainBlue members.
• Members may introduce us to early stage entrepreneurs in their network who may be in need of our coaching, consulting or advisory services.
  
• Early Stage Company or Intrapreneur Benefits:
• Opportunity to meet one-on-one for one hour of complementary discussion on early stage clean energy, high tech or life science entrepreneurial efforts. Additional ongoing support is available on a consulting basis for $200 an hour, and includes e-mail follow-ups and introductions, as well as optional participation as an advisory board member.
• Opportunity to submit your software or hardware innovation as part of our weekly newsletter to our community members.
  
• Ongoing strategic introductions to potential strategic investors, partners, founders and customers in support of your entrepreneurial cause.
• Facilitating an introduction to US Trade and Export for consultation on marketing products and services outside the US.
• One facilitated strategic or executive session a year, at a discounted rate of $100/hour.
• E-mail feedback and input on business model or executive summary.
• Other benefits, to be determined.

FountainBlue was launched in January 2006, and for many years ran monthly events. Since August 2008, we offered discounted rates for our members to attend these events, and since June 2011, we offered complementary passes to members who attend our entrepreneur events.

But change is a given, one of the few knowns in life, particularly with the global economy shifting as dramatically and quickly as it has been recently. Through our activities and through our conversations with our members, we have decided that we can better serve our members by providing coaching, consulting and recruiting services, and supporting partner organizations in producing events for early stage clean energy, high tech and life science entrepreneurs. As such, we sunsetted all of our entrepreneur forums by January 1, 2012, but continue to produce our When She Speaks series on an ongoing basis.

What does sunsetting entrepreneurial events mean for you in terms of event admissions?

• If you are not a member, you can join as a member for about $20 and attend the remaining November and December entrepreneur forums free. Or you can continue to attend at the partner or general rate of $32-$42 each.
• If you are an annual member and you joined this year, you will receive all membership benefits around our events through this year.
• If you are an ongoing member and you joined this year, we will send you individual e-mails about your options to ensure that you get the event-attendance value you expected when you joined.
• If you are an ongoing member and you joined last year or before, please send us an e-mail if you would like to have a conversation about how we can ensure you receive the value you expected when you joined.
• If you are confused about whether you’re a member or not, or just want to have a conversation about our events, please reply to this e-mail with your thoughts.

Which organizations will we be partnering with?

• For our clean energy series, we will continue to work with Clean Tech Open to support their alumni, and with MITNC and SVForum to support their program and outreach efforts.
• For our life science series, we will continue to work with Bio2Device group members, with BayLink LLC and their portfolio of clients, and with MITNC and SVForum to support their program and outreach efforts.
• For our high tech efforts, we will continue to partner with AAMA and JHTC to support their program and outreach efforts, and VLAB as an advisory board member.
• We are continuing to support other organizations in the region by promoting events to the community. E-mail us at info@FountainBlue.biz if you would like to have a conversation about working more closely together with your organization.

Now that FountainBlue is sunsetting its entrepreneurial events, what kinds of communications will you be receiving if you are on the list?

What types of consulting and recruiting services will we provide?

• Starting in January, instead of receiving weekly invitations to our clean energy and life science events, you will receive a weekly newsletter with the following elements:
• What’s new from FountainBlue
• Hot trends or recommendations from the community
• E-mail us at info@svexecs.com if you would like us to share a story or article which would be of interest to the overall community
• Profiles in Innovation
• E-mail us at info@svcleanenergy.com, info@svlifescience.com, or info@sventrepreneurs.com if you would like to nominate an innovative company to be profiled

• List of job openings (detailed job descriptions are only available for members)
• Call or e-mail us if you would like to have a conversation about your hiring needs or if you are interested in specific posted positions
• Leadership themes/quotes
• Community event recommendations
• Other – your suggestions for other topics of interest are welcome

What types of consulting and recruiting services will we provide?

• We are offering and refining these services to clients now. Our December newsletter will provide details on how we will be serving the start-ups and corporations in our network. In the meantime, please feel free to share your needs or send us your inquiries through e-mail, info@FountainBlue.biz.

In the end, remember that Silicon Valley is known the world over for its ability to pivot in the face of change, in order to address the market changes and better address customer needs. As we taper off our clean energy and life science forums, we will leverage the networks connected, the communities developed, and the information shared as we shift our focus to coaching and consulting to early stage start-ups and recruiting and coaching for mid-size and larger corporations seeking more female and diverse talent for their management team.

We invite your inquiries, suggestions, feedback and interest as we continue with our consulting, coaching and recruiting efforts! If you’re interested in catching up over the phone or in person, please visit http://meetwith.me/lindaholroyd and suggest a good time to connect.

FountainBlue’s Policy for All Communications Between Members

The FountainBlue community was built to ensure a large network of business professionals – entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, investors and others in the high tech, clean energy and life science space – who are committed to supporting other leaders succeed with their entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial ventures. Many have remarked on the quality of people in the community, both in the forums and at our events.

We take great pride in who has chosen to be part of the community, and will be proactive about enforcing communication policies to help ensure that the community continues to grow, and continues to have a high standard of conduct for its members so that all may benefit. There are three main elements of our communications policies, and corollaries for each element.

Treat Others with Respect, and Insist on Being Treated with Respect – We’ve created a community of diverse, competent people of integrity, and insist that we collaborate, be respectful and work together. There is no room for people who don’t feel similarly.

1. Treat others with respect and be open to their perspectives and advice and opinions, while respectfully engaging in conversation.

Practice the Tell-Don’t Sell Policy – Although we’ve designed our events and communities to facilitate quality connections, we recognize that those who sell aggressively do not contribute to the overall community and will take measures to ensure they respectfully tell about their services when there’s an inquiry, and don’t sell aggressively particularly to those who are not interested.

2. Feel free to respond to inquiries in person or over our forums about who you are and what you do, but don’t tell someone what you do or sell your services unless it is in an appropriate context.
3. Please help us maintain active monitoring of this policy and report others who push your personal comfort zone and lean toward the sell-rather-than-tell mentality, and we will anonymously connect with them.
4. Please feel free to update your personal pages on Wild Apricot to better describe your services in case anyone is interested.
5. Please feel free to facilitate conversations in the subgroups around topics of interest to your organization or your business, and without heavily pushing your services.
6. If someone expresses no interest, respect their wishes, please do not push him/her to re-consider. If someone reports that you have pushed them past their comfort zone, we will let you know, and repeated infractions may jeopardize your membership.

Seek the Win-Win Conversations – We’ve created a community of quality people interested in helping each other succeed personally and professionally and need everyone in the community to think first about the needs and perspectives of others and then think about the relevancy to yourself and others in your network.

7. Be other-centric – more interested in what THEY are doing and how you can be helpful to them, than leading with what’s-in-it-for-you.
8. Never ask for a meeting or take someone’s time unless you know what’s in it for them.
9. Think strategically about your business and who can help you with your business, but when connecting with others, research their background and listen to their needs first, rather than leading with what YOUR needs are.
10. Be always open to ‘paying it forward’ and commit to building the relationship and helping others first, even if it doesn’t necessarily help you in the short term. It’s good for you and for the overall community, even if you never see direct or immediate returns.
    

By communicating these standards of conduct, we hope to continue growing a quality trust-based community that will benefit everyone. We request that our members proactively report any violations of the above policies so that we can take quick and decisive action without mentioning your name. Please note that we take these policies seriously, and do not welcome members or guests who repeatedly violate them.

• Clean Energy – Jim DiSanto, Christine Hertzog, Matt Lecar, Azmat Malik, Ellen Rudy, Cal Sloan, Tom Thayer, Dick Zeren
  
• High Tech – Steve Adelman, Alice Goldstein, Cynthia Holladay, Barry Holroyd, Melissa McDonell, Sandy Orlando, Sheri Osborn, Dennis Shiao
  
• Life Science – Sherri Dohemann, Audrey Erbes, Geetha Rao, Bill Wright

YahooGroup for Executives: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SVExecs
YahooGroup for Clean Energy: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SVCleanEnergy
YahooGroup for Life Science: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SVLifeScience
YahooGroup for Tech Entrepreneurs://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SVEntrepreneurs
YahooGroup for Women Leaders: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/WhenSheSpeaks
FountainBlue LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/2314/6651574BFC60/