Welcome back!
I think the universe is trying to tell me something.
I recently completed a research project that provided sparked some creative business ideas. (Direction!)
I had dinner with friends on Sunday and in addition to a tummy full of s’mores, came away with plans to meet with a small group to hash out our stuckness and inertia around our fledgling businesses. (Action!)
And then I came across these posts (Inspiration!):
from Charlie at Productive Flourishing
Although Charlie started with a discussion of the recent “Free” controversy/debate in the blogosphere, he really hooked me with the theme of “people-centered capitalism.” What a powerful force of change and of good this can be and I think we’re just getting starting.
Wouldn’t you rather support the business of a person you know instead of a nameless corporation?
Wouldn’t you rather buy something that’s unique and meaningful to you instead of something that satisfies the lowest common denominator?
And as a small business, aren’t you the one with the advantage?
You are the sales / marketing / R&D / customer service department – if you need to make a change, you can. You are the one who creates your business – make it something you and your customers love.
from Leo Babuta (@zen_habits) at Zen Habits
How could I resist this:
The way we work is changing, the way we live has already changed. Entire industries are crumbling, and more are growing on their ruins. People are empowered to express themselves, to create, to become a part of a global conversation and transformation, in a way that has never existed before.
What will you do with that?
Do something.
Do something interesting.
Be a part of the conversation, and say something remarkable. Create something unique, new, beautiful. Build upon the works of others and transform it into your own…
What follows is a laundry list of ways you can take action including such small steps as “focus on less but do it better” and larger ones like “make the lives of others better.”
And if something as simple (I won’t say easy) as showing up in your life and being yourself (even if that includes “be[ing] a dork, but do[ing] it boldly”) can make a difference, then I can at least do that much.
What will you do?
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I know some people still consider Denver a cow-town, but after last night’s Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup, maybe we’re more of a cow and bunny town…
If you haven’t made it to one of these Meetups yet, here’s what it’s all about:
The 1st Tuesday each month at 6PM, five people get five minutes each to demo something. Five companies each have five minutes to demonstrate their new technology, followed by five minutes for Q&A from the audience. The event is designed to provide a time and place for technologists and entrepreneurs to showcase the new technology developing in Boulder/Denver tech community (geeks, investors, entrepreneurs, hackers, etc). The event is also designed to create networking opportunities for anyone interested in new technology.
Fun, right? And since I happened to have free babysitting services last night (thank you for in-laws visiting from out of town!), I hopped in the car and made the quick trip downtown to the Tivoli.
(Note to self: Check parking maps *before* heading out. Especially when you’re headed to a college campus and school is in session.)
CowPotato: Using Android to whack cows with spuds
After welcoming remarks from Robert Reich (OneRiot) and Brad Bernthal (Silicon Flatirons), Jeremy Slade kicked off the presentations with a demo of his Android-based game: CowPotato (yes, you shoot cows with a potato gun.) I would have been more interested to hear about developing for Android versus for the iPhone, but that’s probably more of a Boulder Open Coffee Club topic. Crowd consensus: meh (although for some reason mooing cows does consistently cause crowd giggling.)
vPo.st: Mobile to Social
After the cows, we moved on to…bunnies? David Rudder used these awesome electronic rabbits to demo his mobile to social networking platform, vPo.st. With vPo.st, you can use your mobile phone to call in a message, that would then get transcribed (via Twilio) and posted to your social network (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace). In this example, a call to vPo.st sent a message to Twitter that prompted the electro-bunnies to start lighting up and twitching their ears. Cool. (Check out the Violet RFID Mirror package on ThinkGeek or buy the stand-alone bunnies directly from Violet.)
Boulder Digital Works: Transdisciplinary learning
David Slayden took us briefly out of the cow and bunny farm with an overview of the new Boulder Digital Works “60Weeks” program starting this fall. Generally, it’s a non-degree university-based program combining the schools of journalism and mass communication with engineering for a yummy art+technology blend of goodness. Anyone want to loan give me $25K to check it out?
LocalBunny: Smart and automatic responses for your business on Twitter
And then, just in case you were starting to miss them, we were back to the bunnies. This time LocalBunny wrapped it up with an overview of their keyword-based Twitter auto-responder for businesses. Think TextMarks, but with Twitter instead of SMS. It’s an interesting concept and I think it will be great for businesses… once they can get *users* effectively using keywords. Not a huge hurdle, but something to think about.
If this sounded like fun…
Join me (and 300+ others) at the next Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup on September 1st in Boulder. Tweet “presenters” to @bdnt to get up to date presenter information (thanks to LocalBunny).
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