Sunday, October 10, 2010

Framingham Mogul in the Making is Still in Middle School


On the cover of today's Boston Sunday Globe is an article about Lane Sutton of Framingham, a social media guru and budding entrepreneur. Nothing too amazing about that, right, given our proximity to one of America's technology centers and some of the best universities and business schools in the country?

Then you get to the second paragraph of the article and read that Lane is just 13, an eighth grader at Walsh Middle School.

We've become accustomed to the tales of college dropout tech wunderkind like Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. But this kid hasn't even started high school yet and he's already working as a consultant to social media companies and has over 2,500 Twitter followers. Of course, many kids his age are on Facebook, but how many 13 year olds do you know with a LinkedIn profile and an already enviable list of work experiences?

A quick Google search reveals that he's already a media veteran, having previously appeared in numerous print articles and videos, including a Boston Herald business piece about Boston area entrepreneurs. He was also profiled in a Forbes article about child entrepreneurs. Locally, he published an article in the Framingham Tab when he was a mere sixth-grader. One of his main online ventures is the web site he runs (complete with ads) at http://kidcriticusa.com/

Whew. Most kids his age are lucky to do their homework and get to soccer practice on time.

You can learn more about this amazing young man and his social network presence at http://www.lanesutton.com/.