At Dogpatch Labs, we try to host at least one event a week – whether it be formal or informal, social or academic, large or small. Last week we hosted a session on search engine marketing best practices.

It was led by David Rodnitzky of PPC Associates. The session was called “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Search Engine Marketing” and David’s slideshow is included below.

When able and appropriate, we try to include presentations from Dogpatch Labs events and post them both on DogpatchLabs.com and on this blog (such as Facebook Connect Best Practices)

The Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch blog recently covered Dogpatch Labs: At Dogpatch, Polaris Unleashes Its Inner Angel.

“Venture investors who want to get close to young Internet entrepreneurs are trying a variety of strategies, aiming to get an early look at start-ups that might one day need a significant amount of venture capital.

Polaris Venture Partners, a well-known Boston-area venture firm, entered the fray with Dogpatch Labs, which it bills as “a frat house for geeks.” Launched in San Francisco about a year and a half ago, the labs have expanded to New York and Cambridge, Mass., providing a temporary home for entrepreneurs, many of the working on social media projects.

Polaris, a multi-stage venture investor that historically has made a significant number of seed-stage investments, so far has backed six companies from the labs.“ … read entire piece here…

In their weekend article “San Francisco sees influx of tech incubators“, The San Francisco Chronicle’s Carlyn Said visited Pier 38 (home of Dogpatch Labs San Francisco) to study these emerging workspaces and communities.

In her exploration of San Francisco workspaces and incubators, Said arrives at a premise similar to our core tenet of open source entrepreneurship: “[Entrepreneurs] do it for the cross-fertilization with other entrepreneurs.”

Now with three locations (San Francisco, New York and Cambridge), Dogpatch has roughly 150 active residents (and an even larger list of graduates). We believe that ‘cross fertilization’ is important both within each space and across the three locations. And as we host events and have new residents join the lab, the key ingredient with search for is collaboration.

As Internet Week New York kicks off next week, CNN visited Dogpatch Labs New York to understand how New York’s growing tech scene compares to Silicon Valley’s.

For the piece (“The next Silicon Valley? It may be New York“), CNN spoke to several of the Dogpatch Labs residents and Polaris partner Peter Flint about New York entrepreneurship, networking and culture. While opinions varied (see the video below), it is clear that:

1. The New York tech scene is growing rapidly, and
2. It has its own unique culture and community

As Peter Flint says in the below video, “I don’t know if New York will ever become Silicon Valley. In some ways, do you want it to become Silicon Valley? The culture here is very different than the culture there.”

With Dogpatch Labs hosting entrepreneurs in New York, Cambridge and San Francisco – we are excited to take part in each of the communities and hopefully add to the unique cultures.

You can watch the video on CNN.com:

A few Dogpatch Labs / Polaris related updates – which I typically try to bundle together!

1. Dogpatch Labs New York featured on CNN

CNN’s recent piece “The next Silicon Valley? It may be New York” looks at the growing tech scene in New York and features Dogpatch Labs and our focus on “open-source entrepreneurship.”

2. Living Proof unveils unique referral program

Living Proof, who just won three CEW Beauty Awards, launched a referral program that:
1. rewards recipients 20% of their purchase
2. and gives successful referrers a $48 gift card

3. StickBits 1.5 Launches

StickyBits has released a new version of their application and it features “official bits”, threading, voting and more. iPhone users can download the newest app here and Android users can go here.

4. JibJab Launches World Cup themed videos

I am very excited to be part of a great evening at Dogpatch Labs tomorrow evening for the Duke Global Entrepreneurship Network (“DukeGEN”) Angel Pitch Night. We have eight companies backed by Duke graduates and founders who are pitching to a judges panel…. also comprised of fellow Duke alums:

- Jim Scheinman ’88, Bebo
- Josh Felser ’86, B ’90, Freestyle Capital
- Aaron Patzer ‘02, Mint
- and myself ’03, Polaris Ventures

The event will be held on Wednesday, May 12th from 6-8:30pm in San Francisco at Dogpatch Labs (Pier 38, The Embarcadero). RSVP for this event on LinkedIn HERE. Space is limited. Attendees will be allowed into the venue on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Numerous companies applied and eight were named as finalists:

- BizeeBee - Small business messaging and scheduling. Founder and CEO Poornima Vijayashanker E ‘04.
- Canvert - Pay per ring lead generation. Founder and CEO Scott Thomas T ‘96.
- CoverHound - Better way to find insurance. Founder and CEO Basil Enan T ‘03.
- FitNet - Empowering healthy living. Founder and CEO Dr. Jason Langheier M ‘09.
- RefYo - Referrals on the social Internet. Co-founder and CEO Ed Spiegel E ‘99 and co-founder and Director of Technology Kevin Lochner E ‘99.
- Social Stir – Dating for social media interactions. Founder and CEO Allen Vance B ‘07.
- Stinky Teddy – Search engine optimized for now. Founder and CEO David Hardtke T ‘94.
- YouRock – Sponsorship of events and individuals. Founder and CEO Jeremy Cotter T ‘02.

Starts: Wednesday May 12, 2010, 06:00PM
Ends: Wednesday May 12, 2010, 08:30PM
Location: Dogpatch Labs
38 The Embarcadero (Pier 38)
San Francisco, CA 94111 US

Website: http://www.dukegen.com/angel-pitch-event
Industry: information technology and services

Intended For: Duke students, Duke alumni, Duke staff, Duke parents, founders, entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists, CEOs

Organization: The Duke Global Entrepreneurship Network (“DukeGEN”)

DukeGEN is hosting an event for the entire Duke community during which Duke founders of non-enterprise Internet businesses or consumer mobile application services, platforms, or applications will present their business concepts to a distinguished panel of Duke angel investors and early stage venture capitalists. Our panelists include Jim Scheinman T ’88, Josh Felser T ’86, B ’90, Aaron Patzer T ‘02, and Ryan Spoon T ’03

We are excited to announce the newest Dogpatch Labs class here in San Francisco. It includes entrepreneurs and companies that have been part of the lab over the last few months and those that just recently joined (new additions: AdCru, Animoto, Burbn, FanPop, JibJab, LearnBoost, Milennial Media, Recruly, StickyBits, Task Rabbit and Wild Pockets).

As always, we look for great, exciting entrepreneurs who thrive in open and collaborative environments. And we aim to have a diverse collection of individuals, companies and verticals. The current batch of residents certainly represents that! You can view the TechCrunch write up here and rosters of all three Dogpatch Labs here.

Dogpatch San Francisco

AdCru is a pay-per-follower ad network for Twitter founded in September 2009.

Animoto (San Francisco) generates custom, professional-looking slideshows from user-uploaded music and photos. Their “patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology and high-end motion design” drives the web app. (TechCrunch coverage)

Burbn is a new way to communicate + share in the real world. (TechCrunch coverage)

Cardpool is a gift card exchange service where anyone can buy, sell, or trade their gift cards in a safe and secure environment. (TechCrunch coverage)

EGG HAUS is an interactive agency. We help our clients create and deploy engaging branded experiences on every consumer platform.

FanPop is a network of user-generated fan clubs for different topics of interest created and maintained by the community of fans.

FanPulse welcomes you to your world of sports. FanPulse (launching January 2010) is a new sports-service that lets you easily follow the sports you love and talk about them with your real friends. (TechCrunch coverage)

Formative Labs – working on ideas that solve problems and change consumer behaviors.

Formspring: Ask questions, give answers and learn more about your friends. (TechCrunch coverage)

Hollrr – Want to help your friends discover a great new product? A quick Hollrr is the easiest way to let them know what deserves a shout out. (TechCrunch coverage)

JibJab (San Francisco): Headquartered in Santa Monica and founded by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, and backed by Polaris, JibJab is a leading e-Card business. (TechCrunch coverage)

LearnBoost is an education platform for secondary schools.

Millennial Media delivers the largest reach – 83% of the US mobile audience – through the largest mobile advertising network in the US. (TechCrunch coverage)

Mr. Tweet looks through your extended network to help you find effective relationships and information most relevant to yourself.

ProfessionL centralizes all your recruitment management needs into one unified web-based software application that can be used by any business that recruits (including recruitment specialists).

Recurly makes subscription billing easy for developers and organizations of all sizes.. (TechCrunch coverage)

The Start Project – turning ideas into action. (TechCrunch coverage)

Stickybits brings the physical and digital worlds together with barcode stickers which trigger audio, video, photo, and text messages when scanned. (TechCrunch coverage)

startupSQUARE is a marketplace where entrepreneurs can meet one another and brainstorm their next big business idea.

TaskRabbit(formerly runmyerrand.com) helps individuals and small businesses in a community outsource their tasks and deliveries, leveraging the latest technology and the social networking paradigm.

Trazzler helps you answer one question, “Where should I go?” by recommending trips unique to your location and Travel Personality.

Twylah: your personal assistant on twitter.

Wild Pockets is an end to end solution that supports creators throughout the life cycle of 3D game development

Yardsellr – In the tradition of neighborhood garage- and yard-sales, Yardsellr makes it easy for you to list and sell, or find and buy whatever you want. Yardsellr helps spread the word about your item within your online “neighborhood” – social and messaging networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Jibe is hiring a VP of Technology. The job is based in New York and a great opportunity to work with leading social technologies as the fourth employee of a great startup.  I blogged about why I think Jibe is an important company tackling a big market at the time of Polaris’ investment.  Since that time, the company has done its private beta and is hustling towards full public launch.  Especially in light of the expanded Facebook functionality announced at F8, we think the opportunity is bigger than ever.

Jibe is firing on all cylinders, and Joe, Peter, and Toby are a talented, lean, and hardworking crew to join on this mission.  They’re also great guys on a personal level.  The full job spec is below.  Feel free to ping me with any questions before applying.

COMPANY JIBE - http://www.jibe.com

POSITION Vice President of Technology

LOCATION New York, New York

WEBSITE www.jibe.com

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

JIBE created the first “Employment Networking Platform” that opens up the social graph of both employers and job seekers to identify the most trusted & qualified candidates.

Designed to bring the power of social networking to online career search, JIBE integrates Facebook and Linkedin to enable employers and applicants to leverage the overlap of their social graphs. From previous co-workers to friends who work with a specific company, JIBE recognizes matches between these two networks as they apply to a job opportunity.

JIBE empowers employers to efficiently search and evaluate relevant candidates that are connected to other employees in their company. By creating a referral-based recruitment process it helps ensure a more satisfied employer and new employee. JIBE’s “employment networking platform” gives applicants benefits that no other job site provides, including the relevancy of job postings to their social connections and real-time status updates about their applications. This level of transparency and feedback gives job seekers the insight needed to get hired for the job they want.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS:

You will report to the CEO

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Your responsibilities will include:

• Recruit, support, train, mentor, motivate and lead a best of breed technology team;
• Identify, architect, develop, implement and maintain technology solutions to meet the company’s strategic business objectives;
• Implement a flexible and scalable infrastructure to support a dynamic product roadmap and prioritize deliverables;
• Implement process and procedures in software development and hardware management that speed the company’s time to market for new products;
• Clearly communicate progress and hurdles you and your team face allowing senior management to make data driven decisions
• Manage schedules, budgets and staffing for multiple simultaneous projects;

TECHNICAL & MANAGEMENT QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience building and leading a highly motivated technical team, in a dynamic product development environment.
• In depth knowledge of Ruby, MySql, graphing databases and search solutions;
• Extensive knowledge building and managing a scalable web infrastructure;
• Experience managing consumer facing web applications and products with substantial traffic volumes and large surges;
• Extensive knowledge in build/release engineering and change management;
• Experience with iterative product development processes;

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS & EXPERIENCE:

The ideal candidate has the following characteristics:

• Business minded engineering executive, with the ability to partner with the Chief Executive Officer and executive team;
• Superior management skills with the ability to create innovative systems that serve the organization’s revenue and business objectives;
• Creative problem solver with a “can do” attitude, a passion for the intersection of media and technology and an enthusiasm for bringing innovative technology products to market;
• A business partner to the senior executive team;
• Lateral thinker with the ability to articulate a strategic decision, give clear direction to technology team and lead by example/inspiration;
• A technical innovator who can amplify product direction with sound advice and creative solutions;
• Willing and able to roll up his/her sleeves and be ‘hands on’ in the process of building and directing the technology organization;
• An excellent communicator with the ability to work effectively at all levels within the organization;
• Impeccable attention to detail and planning along with a process-driven approach towards achieving objectives.

EDUCATION

An undergraduate degree in Computer Science or equivalent is required. An advanced degree is preferred.

COMPENSATION

A competitive compensation package will be offered to the successful candidate.  The compensation package will include a base, bonus and equity.

Send cover letter, resume, and work samples to:

Hacker@jibe.com

I have been delinquent in updating this blog with recent additions to Dogpatch Labs San Francisco… so here are five companies that have taken home at Dogpatch Labs over the last couple months (and I’ll try to provide more frequent updates!)

Burbn is a new way to communicate + share in the real world.

Cardpool is a gift card exchange service where anyone can buy, sell, or trade their gift cards in a safe and secure environment.

Formspring: Ask questions, give answers and learn more about your friends..

ProfessionL centralizes all your recruitment management needs into one unified web-based software application that can be used by any business that recruits (including recruitment specialists).

Rosepad is an education platform for secondary schools.

The next Dogpatch Labs San Francisco office hours will be Wednesday March 31st from 9:00 – 11:00am. Office hours are informal and a good opportunity to meet, tour Dogpatch and interact with other residents / entrepreneurs.

If attending, please grab your free ticket on Eventbrite!

Where: Dogpatch Labs at Pier 38 in San Francisco (Townsend and Embarcadero)
What: Office Hours
When: March 31st at 9-11am
Who: Ryan Spoon (Polaris Venture Partners) and various Dogpatch residents + office hours attendees