The Pond, an Octopz blog on communication, collaboration and coworking online.

Ron McKenzie, Octopz CEO 2.0 and Barry Fogarty, Co-founder and Chief Evangelist.

On May 24, Ron McKenzie, P.Eng. joined Octopz Inc. as Chief Executive Officer. He takes over the CEO function from company co-founder Barry Fogarty, who will assume the newly-created role of Chief Evangelist.

Ron has extensive experience leading fast-growing tech companies both in Canada and the United States. He has held leadership roles in the computing and communications sector with companies such as Hewlett Packard, SGI, FORE Systems and most recently as Executive Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, of MTS/Allstream (formerly AT&T Canada).

According to Ron:

It’s an exciting opportunity to join an organization with such a unique and differentiated solution. It’s a tremendous testament to the quality and originality of Octopz that they’ve launched to such great reviews from critics and customers. I’m looking forward to using my experience in the computing, software and service provider sectors to help propel the company to even greater levels of success.

And Barry, grinning ear to ear because he gets the fun gig of Chief Evangelist, adds:

Ron’s strengths and experience will bring new impetus to the continuing development of our solution and the rapid growth of our business. With Ron leading the team, I am excited to take on the role of Chief Evangelist, allowing me to concentrate on promoting Octopz and working more closely with clients to ensure that future developments continue to not only meet but exceed their needs and expectations.

Find out more about Ron, Barry and the rest of the Octopz team here. The official news release about Ron’s appointment is here.

Technorati Tags: barryfogarty, Octopz, RIA, ronmckenzie, SaaS, webware

Voting in the Webware 100 contest is now open and Octopz is among the 25 finalists in the Productivity category.

The editors of Webware.com culled through more than 5,000 reader-submitted nominations to choose 250 finalists (25 in each of ten categories). Now the award voting process is being turned back to the audience to select the final 100 winning products and services (10 in each category). Voting closes on June 11 and the winners will be announced on June 18.

We’re thrilled to be included the final round of the Webware 100 and in the same category as industry-leading companies like Amazon, Ebay, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. If you’ve signed up with Octopz and like our service, please consider voting for us.

If you haven’t had a chance to try our online collaboration service yet, check out the quick tour, sign up for your own free trial account and if you like what you see, please consider us for a vote in the Webware 100 Productivity category.

Technorati Tags: awards, collaboration, flash, flex, Octopz, online collaboration, RIA, SaaS, web2.0, webware

Octopz is identified as a 2007 Rising Star by InfoWorld and profiled as part of their Month of Startups feature series. Editor at large Paul Krill starts the story by writing that:

Nobody’s sure exactly how it is that social networks like MySpace and Facebook are really going to make money for their corporate masters. But one thing people have figured out is that online social networks are great mediums for people to share ideas and collaborate. Now one startup, Octopz, is hoping to apply that logic to the topsy-turvy community of creative professionals. In the process, the company is making a splash in the ocean of Internet collaboration hopefuls.

In the article, Octopz co-founder and chief evangelist Barry Fogarty points out that Octopz is:

The ideal solution for creative professionals working with rich media. We make advanced, on-demand collaboration simple and effective.

Barry also shares some background on how Octopz began:

Fogarty says the Octopz application originally was developed for his own use with agencies and clients. “Once we started to use it with our clients, they got interested,” and asked to license it, says Fogarty, who previously owned a company called Diginiche, which produced high-end interactive images.

Aldo Cundari, chairman and CEO of The Cundari Group, an advertising agency and Octopz client is also quoted in the InfoWorld profile:

We find that our clients like the flexibility it (Octopz) brings to the workflow process. We have also seen increase in productivity and a reduction in project cost by removing travel and the hours required (when) constantly chasing (a) client for input and approvals.

The full InfoWorld article is here.

Technorati Tags: adobe, barryfogarty, collaboration, coworking, flash, infoworld, microsoft, Octopz, online collaboration, RIA, SaaS, silverlight, web2.0, webware