2012 Silicon Bayou 100: The How

After two years of the Silicon Bayou 100 running fairly similarly and smoothly, there are still remaining questions and some confusion as to how it works. This post is meant to be a clarification of the #SBN100 and provide a starting point for discussions on how the process may change next year.

What the Silicon Bayou 100 is:

  1. The Silicon Bayou 100 is a list created to recognize the most active and influential people in technology and entrepreneurship in Louisiana.
  2. The list is created based on nominations submitted anonymously by the public.
  3. “Active and influential” is a very broad description. It is up to our readers, those nominating, and the judges to determine how to apply that to the list.

What the Silicon Bayou 100 is not:

  1. A list of people who are in some way involved in SiliconBayouNews.com. Many of those nominated and listed had never heard of SiliconBayouNews.com prior to being listed.
  2. A list of our personal friends, family, SBN writers, etc. Many of the people involved in SiliconBayouNews.com are involved in the tech and entrepreneurial community in other ways and may be nominated/selected for the list.

SBN100 Nominations:

  1. Nominations for the list were accepted from October 24th, 2012 – November 7th, 2012 and were announced on this post.
  2. If someone was not nominated, they were not considered for the list.
  3. Nominations were completely anonymous. We did not request or collect any data to determine who nominated someone.
  4. Those nominated for the 2011 Silicon Bayou 100 were again considered for this year.

SBN100 Judging:

  1. With over 200 names received from the nominations process, the judging process was not clear cut. There are many individuals doing great work in Louisiana who we were not able to include on the list.
  2. Judges were asked to consider 7 areas of possible nominee activity during the 2011 judging. The 7 categorizations were: Entrepreneur, Mentor, Funder, Champion, Organizer, Tech Provider, Service Provider.
  3. Some nominees were ranked because of their heavy involvement in one category, while others were listed for various levels of involvement in several categories.
  4. As an example, Chris Schultz could fall under all seven categories because of his involvement in creating & selling his own company, mentoring with Launch Pad Ignition, funding start-ups with Voodoo Ventures, championing for the New Orleans tech scene at SXSW, organizing TribeCon, providing tech development through Flatstack and providing a service to the community through Launch Pad.
  5. The Sponsors were solicited separately from the judging process. Other than myself, Judges were not aware of sponsorship commitments and sponsors were not aware of the nominees or the contents of the list until the release last Wednesday evening.

Summary

If you have further questions, please comment below and let us know! If you were expecting other names on the list, make sure you participate by nominating people next year. If you are interested in being a judge in the future, send us a note via the Contact page.

Thanks to everyone who participated this year and thanks again to our great sponsors for the 2012 Silicon Bayou 100: Launch Pad, Louisiana Technology Park, New Orleans BioInnovation Center, Eiffel Society, and BioDistrict New Orleans.