The road to music superstardom isn’t paved with gold. It’s full of  hard work, drama, and shows…lots of shows. It’s the grind baby, and it’s not for the lazy or faint of heart. But if you’ve got the drive, gear, and talent you have a shot at making it to the top. Think you got what it takes to live the Platinum Life? Good, because you’re going to have your chance soon enough.

Heatwave Interactive has just launched the beta version of its social networking game called Platinum Life on Facebook. And you might be shaking your head thinking, “not another social networking game,” but please hold your judgment until you play it. Instead of being down home on the farm or joining up with a shady mob, Platinum Life lets players step into the role of an artist trying to make it in the music world. Players start on the path to fame, fortune, and notoriety by choosing their class. Whether you choose a Rapper, DJ, or Vocalist, the game is proving to be a very entertaining and engaging experience.

Right now, I’m playing as a rapper named Triumph. I’m hoping that in some small way my femcee can redeem the sorry state of women in Hip-Hop. So lets start at the top. After you choose your class, players have the chance to customize their avatar’s appearance. You can tweak gender, clothing, region, even their hair style with every choice, excluding gender having an effect on the amount of performance points you start out with. This is important because the more performance points you have, the easier it will be to get the crowd under your sway. I had fun building Triumph and I couldn’t wait to play.

If you’ve played any social networking game you know you start at the bottom of the barrel at level one. In Platinum Life, you start off as unsigned, not unsigned hype, you have to build that yourself. You build you career doing shows, which add to your fame level. Fill up your fame gauge and you move to the next level. Gameplay is fun. You start off with the small time gigs, open mics and high school parties with your first goal dangling like a proverbial carrot — reach level five and make your first mixtape. I’m at level seven right now and let me tell you, making that mixtape tasted sweet.

To keep things interesting, some drama might enter the scene. As in real life, it can be in the form of a heckler or a noise complaint. You have three options to deal with drama — break out, turn it up, or diss the fool. So far I’ve been a ‘diss the fool’ type of girl. And it’s been working for me, but that might always be the case so don’t get to comfortable with handling drama the same way every time it rears its ugly head.

After you’ve performed a few shows, you might receive a few prompts that are hinting that your shows aren’t hitting and that  you need to re-up on your gear to remedy the problem. No worries, you can go to the store and buy clothes, equipment, and even property like pool halls and television broadcast stations when you get to the proper level. The clothing choices are pretty varied, but I hope that the developers will continue to add pieces to the collection. Aside from the aesthetic, certain pieces of gear give you performance points, so while you might want to have a scantily clad artist, it pays to cloth your avatar. There are currently pieces of clothing that give your artist a 90 point boost, I can’t wait to get my hands on them.

The attention to detail in this game is incredible, from the clothing to the equipment, the developers took their time to craft a game that wouldn’t be a fly by night affair. The animation is beautiful, I love the game’s title song, and the beat playing in the background is something you can nod your head to. In addition to the core gameplay, there’s also a trivia section that will definitely test your music knowledge. There is also a battle arena where players can put up an ante for another player to take — provided they have the skills. Similar to battles in Mafia Wars, depending on your level and performance points the battles are yours to win or lose.

I’m usually not a fan of social networking games, but the more I play Platinum Life, I’m discovering I’m thinking strategy in the same way I do when I’m playing Final Fantasy XIII or Metal Gear Solid. I’m working towards getting my first record deal so I’ll keep you posted on when I reached the signed level of the game. I’m enjoying the time I’m spending with the game. It has that same engrossing characteristic that keeps me playing for hours on end and not minding one bit that I might have missed a meeting (just kidding). It’s a must play.

Last week was a busy week for Moguldom Media Group, parent company to Bossip.com.  Not only did they launch BossipTwitter.com they also launched a new site that goes right when you thought they were going to go left.  The Atlanta Post is the company’s newest venture and it aims to target high-income African-Americans.  While the site focuses on topical information in the areas of Business, Finance, Media, Politics, and News it is also taking the local route covering markets like DC, NYC, Chicago, and of course Atlanta.  The Atlanta Post aggregates content from around the web and also produces it’s own original content.  The new site’s Managing Editor had this to say:

“We look forward to giving African-American professionals the kind of targeted, highly relevant online experience they’ve been waiting for. The Atlanta Post will inform our visitors through both aggregated and original reporting, analysis, and opinion. How-to content will help our readers achieve their goals in small business, personal finance, and career, and coverage of successful African-American business and thought leaders will provide inspiration for a new generation of rising stars. For advertisers, The Atlanta Post offers a powerful new opportunity to reach and sell to this select group.”

The demographic for the new site is set to reach African-Americans between the ages of 25 – 55 with an household income of more than $75,000. Data from Packaged Facts claims this demo represents 17% of the African-American population and are responsible for 45% of the community’s total buying power—which has been projected to exceed $1.1 trillion by 2012.

Marve Frazier, CEO of Moguldom Media Group commented on what currently exists for this market in the space, “The African-American community produces its own leaders, and the online resources that serve these individuals should originate within our community as well, rather than leaving them to make do with more generic publications that fail to reflect the unique needs and preferences of high-income African-Americans. We’re excited to launch The Atlanta Post and add its brand to our premium portfolio.”

In the content game will this strategy work or will gossip and meaningless celebrity focused content continue to gnaw at African-American audiences audiences online?  Furthermore can a media company be good at serving both audiences, and serving them well?  Your thoughts?

On December 10, 2009 myself and Abi from Noire Digerati and nine of our DePaul University computer science classmates were at the Chamber of Commerce Brazil to meet the chamber president as well as hear presentations from members of their tech community/incubator ACATE. The first presenter was Rodrigo Lossio, a Technology Journalist who is also Executive Editor at TISC Technology and Santa Catarina who basically went over the history of CELTA and Brazil’s tech community. The second presenter was Ricardo Grassmann, the CEO of Way2technology, which develops technology for the energy sector.

While Ricardo presented, our third presenter, TalkAndWrite co-founder Bruna Rezende quietly slipped into the room. When her turn came to present, Bruna ran through several PowerPoint slides about TalkAndWrite, a technology startup she founded with her father. The company competes in the collaborative whiteboard space with the likes of Adobe, IBM, and Microsoft. Aside from having a female co-founder,  TalkAndWrite stands out as one of the only companies within the space with a product certified by Skype and made for use collaborative whiteboard space.

We quickly transitioned to a Q&A. Not surprisingly, one of the first questions asked of Bruna literally went like this: “OMG, you’re a female co-founder of a tech startup, what are your experiences with sexism or discrimination in the Brazil tech incubator?” And her answer was?! Check out the video footage we captured:

(via Black Digerati @BlackDigerati)

If you’re looking for an easy way to stay up to date on what your fav celebs are doing on Twitter BossipTwitter.com might be exactly what you are looking for.  Bossip’s parent company Moguldom Media Group launched BossipTwitter this week and the company’s Chief Creative Officer Marve Frazier had this to say:

“It has always been our strategy to harness the latest revolutionary trends in technology and media to create exciting new experiences for the community we serve. We leapt out to an early lead with Bossip.com, but we’re staying hungry and never taking our leadership position or our readers for granted. By embracing innovative social platforms like Twitter that complement our existing products, we can give readers an even better media and cultural experience while upgrading the diversity and quality of our digital offerings.”

Simply put BossipTwitter.com is aggregating Twitterfeeds from African-American celebrities similar to other sites in the market.  The biggest difference here is that the site focuses on African-American celebs, something that hasn’t been focused on as of yet, and it is an easy and logical compliment to Bossip.com.  The new site should play well and resonate with Bossip’s current audience, however with Twitter’s launch of Twitter Lists I’m unsure if the site will catch on.  It’s popularity in my opinion is dependent on if their demographic uses Twitter Lists at all, if they don’t it should be smooth sailing for the new site.  “Vetern” sites in this space like CelebrityTweet.com, recently acquired by Global Grind CEO Russell Simmons,  have the benefit of being first to market well before Twitter rolled out its list feature.  Additionally, I’m no expert in Trademarks however I’m not sure if the company can use Twitter’s name in it’s name; most websites we see that launch in this space have some variation on the word…Tweet, Twit.  It should be exciting and interesting to see the adoption among Bossip’s audience.  One this is for certain, they will likely love the new site just as much as they love Bossip.

Picture this…Some friends and I decide to start an internet business and we choose a catchy and SEO friendly name.  We invest money into start-up operation costs.  We purchase the domain name, legally incorporate, obtain business bank accounts, hire personnel, create a logo, and order marketing materials.  We send out press releases and obtain investors.  We are ready to go.  We realize this is a hot concept, so we want to obtain trademark protection for the business name and identity.  We hire an attorney to assist with obtaining trademark registration and  he discovers the name is already trademarked by another company.  Yikes!

Unfortunately, I see this scenario very often in my practice.  When choosing a business name or identity during the start-up phase, most business owners simply do not think about trademark registration.  However, in my legal opinion as soon as a business owner chooses a company name  a trademark search to assess the availability of the name or logo should be done immediately.  Taking this proactive approach can save a new business from wasting dollars on a name and/or identity they can not own.  Furthermore, if a trademark search clears a business to register the chosen name, logos, or other brand identifying material, the business should immediately file for a trademark to claim ownership of the mark. Very often individuals tend to infringe on company and or trademark names if they see the potential in its success! Remember, the first to use the name in commerce is the priority trademark owner!

Here are a few trademark search tips I recommend when starting a business and choosing a company name.

1. Do a preliminary search on Google to ensure that a trademark right has not been claimed in the company’s business name;
2. A preliminary search on Google will cost $0. However, Google will not find viable and valid trademark rights of companies that are not on the internet or do not have active advertising and marketing campaigns.  To fully ensure your company is not infringing another trademark owner’s rights, a more comprehensive search can be done.
3. Hire a trademark attorney to perform a comprehensive search.  A comprehensive search will include:

• A search of the USPTO database, all 50 states trademark databases, company names that have incorporated with the state, trade names, the Copyright Office database, and the internet.
• If you plan to sell your product or service in another country, you can also obtain an international search.
• The cost of a comprehensive search for a name only starts at $550.00. However a search performed for a logo and name, starts at $950.00. International Searches do require much larger fees.

There are several companies that perform comprehensive searches. Here are a few:

CT Corsearch.

CompuMark

4 Trademark.com

These companies gather the information but do not analyze it or ensure your trademark is not infringing.  A trademark attorney can analyze the contents of the search and give you a legal opinion regarding the availability of your mark.

The National Urban League is celebrating their Centennial this year and apart of that celebration their I Am Empowered campaign and social mobilization platform is sure to make a big splash.  It launched today so you still have enough time to be one of the first to check it out.  You probably remember when we wrote about civil rights organizations just starting to adopt social media, it wasn’t long ago…August 2009 to be exact.  Well the Urban League has taken the concept of social media and what it means for their cause and has expanded it at mach speed.  Just 7 months later they’ve launched their social mobilization platform to include integration into social networks and even mobile devices; iPhone and Andriod aren’t strangers here and roll out along side the web platform today.

What’s really interesting is how quickly this all came to be.  You may remember how accepting of digital media NUL’s CEO Marc Morial was last summer when we interviewed him.  Even Chief Innovation Officer Patrick Gusman hinted at a complete shift in the way the NUL plans to solve problems this year when we interviewed him late last year.  It’s sad to say that not many people get in, there are still some in the Media realm that don’t get it so it is very much surprising and encouraging to see a civil rights organization jump all over the opportunities that exist for minorities in new media.  And do it well to boot.  Morial had this to say about how the organization is staying nimble regardless of its age:

“The National Urban League may be 100 years old but we don’t have any gray hair.  We are more energetic, more focused and more determined than ever before to create a level playing field in our nation, especially as minorities are disproportionately suffering from the effects of a battered economy.  The I Am Empowered initiative not only strives to galvanize a nation to serve others, but positions the National Urban League in the right place to connect with more people and to serve urban communities better in the 21st century and beyond.”

The platform essentially allows you to consume content (written and video) however what’s more impressive is how you are able to measure your Social Impact.  You simply complete tasks/actions and you can earn points.  The more points the more of a social impact you have.  Right now some of the tasks include recruiting others to your network on the platform, connecting your account to Facebook, and RSVPing to NUL Events.  This is obviously all at launch so the real impact will be when people start to use it from their mobile devices and these tasks/actions start to become location based.  I smell a trend, and it smells like a location based social change movement.  That said it makes all the sense in the world why they’d roll out with both an iPhone app and an Andriod App.  I am personally interested in seeing how this message will continue to spread, particularly with the tendency of civil rights movements of any era being bottom up rather than top down similar to social and new media.

What say you?  Will you take NUL’s challenge to become EMPOWERED?  What do you think of their new platform?

Editors Note:  The following guest post is written by Isaac Newton Farris Jr., nephew of Dr Martin Luther King Jr.  He was born in Atlanta, Georgia and attended his uncle’s alma mater, Morehouse College where he majored in Political Science. Mr. Farris is the President and CEO of the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change located in Atlanta, Ga.

My uncle, Martin Luther King, Jr. once described freedom as “the bonus we receive for knowing the truth.” But for Dr. King, knowledge by itself was never the end point. His greatest concern was what people would do with their knowledge.

That’s why it is so fitting that the Obama Administration has spent Black History Month by, among other things, putting the finishing touches on its strategy for expanding affordable high-speed Internet service. For the African-American community, this is a truly monumental decision. The idea of affordable Internet access for every resident holds remarkable potential for all our brothers and sisters.

How important? What television was to previous generations, the Internet is for us today. It holds the key to so many benefits: knowledge, education, employment, political activism and the promise of a better future. In short, it is the means of empowerment.

Today’s Internet is the link that gives our children access to high-quality educational resources; it helps our entrepreneurs and small businesses compete and grow; and the Internet holds the promise of better healthcare and more affordable entertainment.

That is what’s at stake with the decisions put forth in the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan due to Congress in March and why it is so important that the commissioners choose wisely. The cost of bringing the Internet to those who do not have it is fearsome. It can cost on average as much as $30,000 per mile to deploy fiber optic cable. Wireless service is also expensive, costing $75,000 to $125,000 per square mile in a typical urban setting.

Faced with these stark costs, the Administration’s overriding concern related to the Internet should be doing what is necessary to spur deployment of new broadband systems. Yet some well-meaning people are pushing the Administration in a different direction.

These groups that encourage rules over the Internet would essentially require all Internet providers to treat every bit of data the same. Think of a four-way traffic stop, which represents how our Internet is working successfully today, and then take away the signs, which is what “net neutrality” regulations would require. There are a number of implications here, and we need to be sure how they will affect our digital future.

Many voices in the African-American community have spoken out on this issue. A recent open letter signed by 23 civil rights organizations, including 100 Black Men of America, raised caution about “a number of proposals… that may discourage broadband adoption.”

Closer to my home, State Rep. Calvin Smyre over in Columbus, GA has pounced on the real issue. Smyre is president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) and an outspoken leader in the effort to improve Internet access for the African-American community. Earlier this year, he and other Black leaders called out to federal officials, saying, “We think it absolutely essential that proactive steps be taken to increase awareness in our communities about the transformative power of broadband and to incent broadband adoption and use.”

The phrase “incent broadband adoption” may strike some as a little dry. So let’s put that in real terms. A growing Internet presence can help the African-American community with two of its most important issues, jobs and economic growth. When it comes to the high-tech industry, the state of Georgia has a wonderful success story. Between 2002 and 2008, high-tech exports increased 30 percent, to $637 million. By one estimate nearly 15,000 of our jobs are supported by these exports.

All you need to do is look down the list of leading employers here – healthcare companies, our universities, media – and the value of better Internet service becomes obvious. All of them need the finest Internet networks in order to succeed. So why shouldn’t we all treat broadband Internet as the great digital equalizer for communities across America?

It has been more than four decades since America heard the challenges laid down by Dr. King’s powerful voice. We’ve seen great progress. And yet our society is still confronting many of the same challenges Uncle Martin faced – the mountain of poverty in our cities, the epidemic of high school dropouts, the cycle of gangs and violence facing too many of our young people.

As the Administration finalizes its Internet plan, I hope it keeps the focus on the right place: doing everything possible to help all Americans gain the benefits of the 21st century Internet.

The post read like anything that would pique your interest like a gossip tip from TheYBF, “Bullying: Disabled Boy Abused in School.” The three-minute clip which was posted on Google Video in 2006, showed four Italian youths in the city of Torino teasing an autistic classmate and throwing tissues at him. According to TIME.com, at least 12,000 people clicked on the video before being taken down due to a formal complaint from the Italian Interior Ministry.

The complaint led to a Milan judge convicting three Google executives of privacy violation for not blocking the video from sight on Wednesday (Feb. 24th). David Drummond, Senior Vice President and top legal officer; Peter Fleischer, Chief Privacy Counsel; and former Chief Financial Officer George Reyes — each received a suspended six-month jail sentence.

While Google plans to appeal the ruling, the conviction has sparked a vigorous debate about Internet freedom. In a statement from the search engine behemoth, Google reacted angrily to the verdict, stating, “it [the decision] attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.” “Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming.”

The verdict has given birth to its share of defenders online. Comments made on Twitter have summed up the sentiment of many online users. A Rhode Island filmmaker by the name of Salim Makhlouf expressed his thoughts by stating, “Italy needs to catch up with the times of open networks and get off Google’s back.” The judge’s written ruling has not yet been issued, but the debate between free-flowing content on the Internet and the responsibilities that come with it, continue.

Luca Sofri, a Milan-based journalist and author of wittgenstein.it, one of Italy’s most popular blogs, sums it up nicely by saying, “The Web creates situations that are completely new and don’t have paragons with the world before. If these incidents are happening all over the world and Italy is the only country to condemn Google for it, maybe there’s something we haven’t understood.”

Got an opinion? Wanna share it? Just drop a comment in the section below!

An integral part of any successful business is marketing and promotion. Look at the crazy amounts of money spent for a few seconds of commercial time during the Superbowl. From creating a recognizable brand to finding creative ways to get the word out to the masses, companies that have the budget to spare hire professionals to spread the gospel of consumerism. That’s where companies like Commonground come into play. Started six years ago by Sherman Wright and Ahmad Islam, Commonground is a full-service marketing agency that deals with the new marketplace.

So what exactly is the new marketplace? According to Wright, the new marketplace was a term that was coined to describe “the space of the world today…in the new marketplace we see a convergence of culture and technology in regards to how people interact…It’s more psychographic than demographic. You have to understand mindsets and how consumers are engaging technology.”

If their client list is any indication, Commonground’s understanding of this new marketing frontier is paying off. Big name clients include Coca-Cola, MillerCoors, and Nike. The co-founders also have an impressive list of accolades including being named in Crain’s Chicago Business Magazine’s annual Top 40 under 40 list for 2009. And while the agency covers all facets of marketing, including the traditional means of advertising — print and television they also recognize the importance of a strong digital campaign and the powers consumers wield through social networking.

“We believe in integrated marketing so it’s not either or” says Wright, “you see a lot of positive results when the two work together. But I think that digital and the internet has proven itself to be sustainable as a standalone in regards to reaching consumers. You can reach millions of viewers with a 30-second spot on the Superbowl. Obviously digital isn’t that broad, but you have more of an engaged audience so you can gather more intelligence about that product. It’s very macro versus micro.”

Speaking of macro, when discussing Commonground’s success and methodology its best to look at the bigger picture rather than get caught up in semantics. While the company is minority-owned, it doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed into being a minority company. You know, the companies mainstream companies use when they’re trying to reach a specific minority demographic. Starting with their name down to their staffing Commonground is a marketing agency that deals in diversity. Utilizing a multicultural staff with differing backgrounds and perspective keeps the company on the cutting edge of the industry. At the end of the day, Commonground’s number one job is to provide creative solutions that will draw consumer attention.

“Clients really want an agency that listens and understands their brand, an agency that has a level of accountability.”

Research Mercury News put out a couple weeks ago regarding the lack of minorities in Silicon Valley has sent a ripple through the tech community.  To give you a brief overview it generally outlines statistics that we all pretty much know:  Lack of entrepreneurship by minorities in Silicon Valley and the lack of minority employees in Silicon Valley.  When laid out statistically the findings are…well..sad and disappointing.  Particularly nuggets from the article like these:

…the combined work force of 10 of the valley’s largest companies — including Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Cisco Systems, eBay and AMD — shows that while the collective work force of those 10 companies grew by 16 percent between 1999 and 2005, an already small population of black workers dropped by 16 percent, while the number of Hispanic workers declined by 11 percent. By 2005, only about 2,200 of the 30,000 Silicon Valley-based workers at those 10 companies were black or Hispanic.

Of the 5,907 top managers and officials in the Silicon Valley offices of the 10 large companies in 2005, 296 were black or Hispanic, a 20 percent decline from 2000, according to U.S. Department of Labor work-force data obtained by the Mercury News through a Freedom of Information request.

In 2008, the share of computer workers living in Silicon Valley who are black or Latino was 1.5 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively — shares that had declined since 2000. Nationally, blacks and Latinos were 7.1 percent and 5.3 percent of computer workers, respectively, shares that were up since 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Between 1999 and 2005, Hispanics were a declining share of the work force in a majority of the 10 large Silicon Valley companies analyzed by the Mercury News — slipping to 5.2 percent of all workers at the 10 companies in 2005, from 6.8 percent in 1999. The black share of the work force at the 10 companies dropped to 2.1 percent, from 2.9 percent.

Whats even more interesting is a guest post over on TechCrunch by Vivek Wadhwa expanding on some of the thoughts in the Mercury News article, specifically how it relates to Indians.  He is also referenced as an expert in parts of the original article by Mercury News.  While I agreed with most of the thoughts there, this statement particularly concerns me:

Is the Valley deliberately keeping these groups out?  I don’t think so.  Silicon Valley is, without doubt, a meritocracy.  In this land, only the fittest survive.  That is exactly the way it should be.  For the Valley’s innovation system to achieve peak performance, new technologies need to constantly obsolete the old, and the world’s best techies need to keep making the Valley’s top guns compete for their jobs.  There is no room for government mandated affirmative action, and our tech companies shouldn’t have to apologize for hiring the people they need. But at the same time, without realizing it, the Valley may be excluding a significant part of the American population that could be making it even more competitive.  False stereotypes may be getting in the way of greater innovation and prosperity.

Why is Affirmative Action okay in every other industry and region but somehow when we take into account Silicon Valley it should be ignored.  Bogus.  As I’ve mentioned many times before there is no innovation without diversity.  Caroline Simard from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology echoed this though in the article:

“If everybody around the table is the same, the same ideas will tend to come up. If you have a diversity of race, gender, age, educational and different life experiences, people will attack a problem from different perspectives, and that will lead to innovation.  In an industry that thrives on innovation, like high tech, it’s especially important.”

In terms of entrepreneurship I think many minorities are calling Silicon Alley and other areas along the Eastcost home to their ventures.  While I couldn’t find any public data to support this (outside of knowing where many of the audience that visits this site comes from) if this is infact the case Silicon Valley could face a real threat from strat-up’s based outside of the area.  This would require the same type of vibrant community The Valley is known for.

Speaking of community I found an organization Wadhwa mentioned in his article fascinating and much needed.  The organization is called TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs):

Their mission was to give back to the community by fostering entrepreneurship.  They would hold monthly events, teach entrepreneurship, and provide mentoring and support.  And they would facilitate Indian-style matchmaking between entrepreneurs themselves and with investors and corporate partners.

Organizations such as TiE are very much needed for all minorities in order for them to succeed, even if only for those who participate to be able to draw from a knowledge bank that would otherwise go untapped.  Needless to say I strongly believe in the value organizations such as these can give.  This is one of the main reasons this spring we’ve decided to partner with Innovation Generation to have our first conference, The New Media Entrepreneurship Conference.  My goals for the conference are to:

• Facilitate open discussion about how to increase the likelihood of success of minority start-ups in new media.
• Formulate an action plan to increase the number of minority new media start-ups and increase the number of successful start-ups that survive.
• Develop a policy framework for advancing and stimulating the growth of minority new media start-ups.

We hope to achieve these goals by focusing on 3 core issues that minorities face when embarking on entrepreneurship in the new media space:  Accesing Capital, Growth Strategies, and Mentorship.

Many of you know how much I like to go to conferences, they are informative however I’ve noticed they often lack any follow through in the concepts that are discussed.  This is what will set The New Media Entrepreneurship Conference apart.  Based on the discussions at the conference (really more like a think tank) I’d like to see an action plan come out of it so that we can see some real change in how minority entrepreneurs are succeeding and surviving in the landscape.  I am totally interested in hearing your thoughts and comments on this however I’d like to get back to the topic at hand first.

Do you think it is necessary for Silicon Valley to be diversified, if so what are some ways to go about doing this?  Is Affirmative Action really the way to go?