10 Things I Learned at Nashville Startup Weekend about Entrepreneurship and Business
I recently attended Nashville Startup Weekend at the Owen School of Business at Vanderbilt University and had a great time. I participated with the team that worked on Planet PE, an e-learning startup focused on physical education curriculum:
1) Scenario model for pitches is great (example narrative or sample customer interaction)
2) It helps to be funny
3) Artificial demand helps your business model and revenue
4) Re-packaging content (again and again) might help scale it
5) Often your personal pain points make the best products and stories
6) Build on existing communities for starting your business
7) E-mail is old school, but can work
8] Mass customization can work as a business model
9) Re-current revenue often beats a one off.
10) Can replicate an existing model in a new market or with a new twist (aka re-mix, mashup)
Here is an article which explains five reasons business plans fail, which can provide helpful guidance when writing a business plan. (hopefully, I’ll blog about and summarize the salient points from this article soon)
Here are all the startup ideas that were pitched on Friday night thanks to Tod Fetherling of the Nashville Technology Council:
1 Luke Mobile phone carrier identification app
2 Lawrence Human value exchange (service barter system)
3 Nicholas Boffee shop
4 Kate & Jason Office Hero (ordering system)
5 Nick Buffalo club (weight loss pool)
6 Lily Daily Candy (sports for sports haters)
7 Betsy Roommates.com for songwriters
8 Darren Online doctor scheduling
9 Stephen Focus Radar automated tasking system
10 Nick-o Get Rich on Jokes.com (joke aggregator/monetizer)
11 Jason Outlook for ADD, Anti-FocusRadar
12 Bruce Golf course merchandise aggregator
13 Luke MBA-powered musicians™
14 Tod PE Teacher.com (Online PE curriculum)
15 Lee Pizza Smackdown
16 Chris Online music collaboration marketplace
17 Anne & Justin Menu planning meets video poker
18 Jake Passive Traveler
19 tod Nashehr.com
20 Chad ican’tmakedecision.com
21 Luke Everyone’s favorite restaurant (multi-delivery)
22 Tom Zombie augmented reality storytelling 2.0 kindof
23 Jake Real estate self-guided GPS app
24 Chris Simple menu-to-SMS ordering for small restaurants
25 Justin Basecamp for event planning
26 Scott Real world Monopoly® GPS-aware game
27 Lee One auto enthusiast site to rule them all
28 Amber One wiki-like legal search app to rule them all
29 Nick-a-rama Reusable Hot-or-Not
30 Kate Evernote for Lyricists
31 Matt Local news site to take The Tennessean’s lost advert $ 2.0
32 Tod Truck Sock + The Wedge
33 Nathan K. Hyperlocal calendar aggregator
34 Nathan S. Wuja Cuja (charity-a-day)
35 Jake & Nate Startup Yearround (Kiva for the First World)
36 Bayard Social Media Styleguide Generator
37 Bo Mortgage applications – shop to all mortgage lenders
And here are the finalists thanks to Andrew Duthie of Duthie Learning:
Here are the five finalists:
PE Teacher.com (Online PE curriculum)
Focus Radar automated tasking system
One wiki-like legal search app to rule them all
Daily Candy-like service for sports haters
Office Hero (ordering system)
And here are the pitches that made the first cut but not the final:
Mortgage applications – shop to all mortgage lenders
Zombie augmented reality storytelling 2.0 kindof
Startup Yearround (Kiva for the First World)
Menu planning meets video poker
Basecamp for event planning
Nashehr.com
Real estate self-guided GPS app
Online doctor scheduling
Crowd Sourcing and Outsourcing Video Editing and Production Companies
You might call me a fan boy of the crowd sourcing phenomena. There are several options for crowd sourcing video. Increasingly as broadband speeds go up, video streaming fees go down (plummet), and the desire for website interactivity and social media rises on both the consumer and enterprise end–video outsourcing and crowd sourcing looks to expand dramatically.
But what are the enterprise solutions in this space? Here is an overview of some of the companies which make up the video crowd sourcing, outsourcing, and off shoring space.
Crowd sourcing Video Companies
Initially Kaltura offers an open source method of outsourcing video editing.
If you are looking to outsource video editing there are many solutions available, with most positioned in India.
More locally, here in Nashville, Studio Now offers a platform for video production and editing. You might also check out Media Mobz for professional video or SpinXpress for more crowd powered video editing, production, and collaboration.
Alternative Crowd sourcing and Outsourcing Resources
Of course, Guru, E-lance, and other sites like Ki Work and even Craigs list offer more generic solutions, which allows you to find video editing and production freelancers internationally. If you are interested in other crowd sourcing companies this list is fairly comprehensive as is this list , although neither is entirely extensive.
Outsourcing and Project Management Principles to Keep in Mind:
I think I would opt for the outsourcing solution which provided:
• a clear idea of the production quality
• a clear time line for completion
• customer service
• met the overall needs and objectives of our organization
• overall custom solution
Have a suggestion for a video crowd sourcing or outsourcing company I left out? Want to recommend a firm you’ve worked with and been happy with the results?
Here is the Did You Know 4.0 video from the wonders of the interwebs:
This version was created by Scott McLeod and Karl Frish who put together the infamous Shift Happens videos (along with the visual design firm XPLANE) and sponsored by the Economist for the upcoming Media Convergence Conference.
Its pretty amazing how far computers have come since 1965 and how small and powerful they will be in just 10 years from now–particularly as mobile moves forward.
For more discussion and insight the Shift Happens wiki suggests these questions for students, teachers, and policy makers:
• What are your initial reactions to what you saw in the presentation?
• How are these changes manifesting themselves in your personal lives? professional lives?
• What do we think it means to prepare students for the 21st century? What skills do students need to survive and thrive in this new era?
• What implications does this have for our current way of doing things?
• Do we need to change? If so, how?
• How do we get from here to there?
• What challenges must we overcome as we move forward?
• What supports will we need as we move forward?
• What kind of training will we need to move forward?
• What kind of commitments will we need to make (with each other, our students, and our community) to move forward?
• Who’s scared? Why?
• What will we do next? What are some concrete actions that we can take in the near future?
• Is it possible for a teacher to be an excellent teacher if he/she does not use technology?
For those worried about the demise of print Journalism and interested in the future of online content, Chris Anderson’s “Free” may provide some needed insight:
There may be more of them, not fewer, as the ability to participate in journalism extends beyond the credentialed halls of traditional media. But they may be paid far less, and for many it won’t be a full time job at all. Journalism as a profession will share the stage with journalism as an avocation. Meanwhile, others may use their skills to teach and organize amateurs to do a better job covering their own communities, becoming more editor/coach than writer. If so, leveraging the Free—paying people to get other people to write for non-monetary rewards—may not be the enemy of professional journalists. Instead, it may be their salvation.
Classroom 2.0: Reviews of the Best Social Media Technology in the Classroom Textbooks
I just received “Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools in the Classroom” and “Re-inventing Project Based Learning” both produced by the folks at ISTE. I think both are worth the money (each runs between $24 and $34 either on Amazon or from ISTE) and I think both can serve either as a guidebook for teachers wanting to implement social media tools in the classroom, textbook for a college classroom, or a guidebook for personal development day on internet technology in the K-12 classroom.
My biggest criticism of these books (and I think these are significant issues for 90 to 95% of teachers who read these texts) are the following:
• lack of a process (lack of lesson plan models or scaffolding). this could help speed up the process as well as provide some leadership on these issues.
• lack of creative ways to solve the digital divide. the inability to address the digital divide is critical to being able to fairly and effectively deal with technology issues in the classroom. how can teachers with only 1 hour a week of computer time implement these policies? how can teachers with just 3 computers in the classroom implement these policies? how can teachers use tools and organizations outside the scope of the school setting to alleviate the digital divide (ie museums)? what are practical ways that teachers have dealt with and negotiated these issues.
• assessment of multimedia digital projects. I think education is just wrapping its head around these issues. I think assessment is critical to the issues of educational fairness and motivation. Although both texts devoted about 7 pages to this issue–I think a more robust and comprehensive handling of the issue is both necessary and desirable. For instance, Solomon and Schrum do point to the work of Helen Barrett and Harry Tuttle on assessment, in addition to the use of e-portfolios such as those provided by for free by Elgg.org. However, no rubric of assessment is really provided.
• Whither Howard Gardner. the lack of mention of Howard Gardner and the extensive project based learning examples he gives, with the small exception of High Tech High, seems pretty surprising. this gives readers a potential opportunity to explore such issues in greater depth via their own research and projects.
• various other cultural and technology issues: a discussion of the issue of information overload and how to deal with the challenges technology presents. tomorrow’s workers will have to deal with a mind numbing array of information sources–dealing with information overload and the challenges technology presents is important to real digital literacy.
By the way, the 16 page bibliography at the end of Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools is quite impressive and overall the book is power-packed with insightful advice and web link resources (I am surprised that the authors or publisher hasn’t created a wiki or blog around the book–or at least one I could find online. I guess the fact that Gwen Solomon runs Tech Learning serves that purpose–so you may want to check it out for further resources, examples, and insight.)
I liked “Re-inventing Project Based Learning” because it expanded the notions of technology beyond just typical Web 2.0 tools. There are 3 examples of mobile phones in the index–as this is in the top 5 of most applicable and accessible technologies–I wish there had been more. This is certainly an area of classroom technology and project based learning which bares further exploration and investigation.
Overall, I think the authors of both education technology textbooks did an excellent job. I would recommend both of these books for any educator, librarian, or education technologist trying to help teachers in their school wrap their heads around these new technology tools. My criticisms above are only meant to supplement the existing texts–and can serve as jumping off points for further research on the topic of social media, web 2.0, and other advanced technologies in the K-12 classroom.
Looking forward to checking out David Warlick’s books on this issue in the near future (in the mean time I’ll have to just reflect on the incredible mass of resources about digital literacy in the 21st century on David Warlick’s wiki) If you have any suggestions for solving any of the above (or any research/links/etc) feel free to leave them in the comments section. (also, feel free to leave your opinion/reviews/asssment about any of the books on this subject)
More Cool Stuff You Didn’t Know about TED Talks
Interestingly enough Wake Forest University has a TED talks watching party every Wednesday for lunch. How cool!!! This is a great way to connect online content with off line community (I’m curious how the crowd for each TED talks changes or how they coordinate the calendar for the viewing of the talks).
If I was on a college campus, ran a library, or another place with people thinking and acting on social change issues–it would be a lot of fun to start a TED viewing party/brown bag activity like this. What do you think about this idea?
Finally, someone has compiled a spreadsheet of all the TED talks so that you can have a different interface to pick and choose which TED talks to watch.
Here are the top ten trends according to 10 Golden Rules: 1) Micro communication (iPhone, Twitter, Qik video, iGoogle and RSS subscription) 2) Virtualization (virtual training like USF, Kaplan, Phoenix, and IBM theatre in Second Life) 3) Free (Ning, Jott, WordPress, Twitter, Flickr, iTunes podcasts and iTunes University, UStream, Linked In, Compete, Google Analytics, Quantcast, Spy Fu) Upgrade model built on freemium business model 4) Social Search (Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, Trip Advisor, Yelp, Angie’s List, Bazaar Voice, Pet Co, Amazon) Ratings, reviews and get listed in maps. [see also Google's version of social search] 5) Social Media Monitoring Technorati, Radian 6, Google Blog search (best practices: Zappos) (“Monitor your brand message. Join the conversation. Be genuine. Be transparent. Experiment.)
6) Disentermediation Help a Reporter Out (HARO) Take advantage of “news holes” 7) Micro-communication via dashboards and widgets:Twitterverse, We Follow, Twitter deck, Amazon Associates, Amazon widgets, Mac OS Dashboard (ie Woot.com), Widgetbox, blidgets (4 types: desktop, Facebook, iPhone, and blogs] 8] Video
9) Personal Brand
10) Semantic Web
(thanks to: Ten Golden Rules.com for an impressive prezo) What do you think are the biggest social media trends for 2010 and beyond?
The ubiquity of increasingly high-powered mobile devices has already spawned the Internet’s first generation of location-based services and applications. As the accuracy of location data improves and the expense of calculating and obtaining it declines, location may well come to pervade the online experience. While the increasing availability of location information paves the way for exciting new applications and services, the increasingly easy availability of location information raises several different kinds of privacy concerns. Ensuring that location information is transmitted and accessed in a privacy-protective way is essential to the future success of location-based applications and services.
Because individuals often carry their mobile devices with them, location data may be collected everywhere and at any time, often without user interaction, and it may potentially describe both what a person is doing and where he or she is doing it. For example, triangulation of an individual’s mobile phone can reveal the fact that he was at a particular medical clinic at a particular time. The ubiquity of location information may also increase the risks of stalking and domestic violence if perpetrators are able to use (or abuse) location-based services to gain access to location information about their victims.
What do you think about the rise of the location enabled web?
What trends are effecting our media culture these days? What will journalism look like in 5 years?
Well, I would say smart print publications will realize that their online strategies are seriously tanking. Ad relevance and revenues aren’t significant or targeted enough. Journalism online not only isn’t creating the necessary affinity, but in the case of Google ads, user click through ratios aren’t as significant as execs would like. Its not surprising then, that citizen journalism has it beat hands down for three pretty compelling reasons:
1) captures the long tail of content (instead of one-sized fits all journalism)
2) its emotional and personal, and speaks in a human language
3) user interfaces which reflect individuality and personalization.
Journalism 3.0 Means Improvements in User Centered Design, Interfaces and Social Functions.
• At the moment, I think Fast Company has it right when it moved from just an online magazine to an online social network, which includes blogging. (Although, I think their use of the network would be literally doubled if they increased the ease of use of the platform. Its a digital iron maiden from the ease of use of Facebook and WordPress )
• Second, the ability to create custom feeds from other sources. An online publication can’t be everything to everyone, but it can allow users to create their own experience. Those interfaces and communities which do the best job on the usability-helping users through the process via suggestions-personalization equation will win. (This might just be the Alltop killer or perhaps they can embed an Alltop like experience in their publications)
• Third, mass customization in the form of dashboards which reflect particular niches and geographies. The world is going global: news in China, India, Brazil, and other BRIC countries is increasingly relevant. So is news from across the pond and the land of the rising sun.
• Going old school with niche forums and message boards not only should be good for community, but also Google ranking.
• PS. Adding social bookmarking options and a blog doesn’t make it social. Its only a first step.
I think the biggest question is whether companies feel they feel best positioned to take on the hyper local in the United States or news around the globe. In other words, if they choose to take a microscope or telescope perspective on the changing culture and business world.
Journalism 3.0 Means Mobility and Modularity:
• Of course mobile is making its way into, but I think this needs to go way, way, way beyond the information delivery function. I think Bravo TV has pioneered this area in some respect (although my gut says they’ve done so in an overtly commercial way with affiliates, but thats only my gut)
• The proliferation of small video pods that are easily accessible and stream smoothly on numerous platforms (even old machines) is critical to creating micro-content that interests users. Crowd sourcing the creation of newspaper content, particularly in the area of video is an option that has been explored by Current TV and there are even several platforms including Studio Now which will edit video for a moderate price, rather than having to hire a ton of videographers on staff.
• Without a doubt user generated content will play a large roll.
• Decrease in duplication in stories so networks can cover a diversity of interesting and relevant local and human interest stories.
• Modularity and customization will fundamentally change how advertising is done and the business models involved.
• I’m curious if more services like the AP will pop up on line which provide syndicated content for newspapers. This would allow great content to be spread across multiple platforms. My notion is that it would be less of a newspaper wire and more citizen journalism or at least human interest oriented.
Your thoughts on journalism 3.0 and trends emerging in journalism?
There seem to be several places that universities could tap online advertising as a way to supplement funds, although time spent securing appropriate advertisers (and performing all the logistics that go along with advertising) might be better spent doing something more….academic:
• email newsletter
• departmental blog or ning (or rather the collective of departmental blogs)
• dashboard or city events blogs
• career center
Top Free E-learning, Distance Learning, and Edu Tech Tools
Social media literacy is an increasing important method of because its the way people will increasingly 1) connect 2) find information 3) share information 4) collaborate.
Here are some of the free education tools I believe form the basis of online media literacy for the 21st century and beyond. What do you think?
1) Ning-Ning allows you to create your own social network for your classes in 2 minutes. Each network is customizable and has robust features including profiles, groups, and forums. 2) YouTube (Vimeo, Viddler, Teacher Tube, and the short lessons at 5min)-free video social networks for posting and sharing instructional or informational video. 3) Widgets (from Sprout)-widgets are one of the building blocks of the web which allow you to 1) aggregate content 2) spread content 3) share content. 4) Slideshare-its Youtube for powerpoint presentations. You can upload your powerpoint presentations and easily post them to your favorite social network or your class blog. 5) Flickr-social network for photo sharing. great for aspiring artists, creatives, and photographers. 6) Wiki (PB Wiki and others)-easy project management software. also allows you to create and collaborate on projects. 7) WordPress (blog and CMS)-free content management and blog software. WordPress will also host your blog, so you can create a webpage for free. 8} Google Docs (Basecamp has a nicer interface, but has a small monthly fee)-easy project or writing collaboration 10) delicious (diigo)-allows you to save all your favorite webpages or references for your class or best practices.
Honorable Mention:
Twitter (for keeping up with conferences and virtual meetups)-micro-blogging platform iTunes-the iTunes University offers free downloads of interviews and college classes at top flight universities Facebook-popular US social networking community Creative Commons-creative commons allows you to share content without the problems of copywrite Academic Earth-creative commons videos of top flight university lectures Moodle-open source e-learning creation tool Friend Feed-great social tool for aggregating social content Google Reader (Netvibes)-great way to read blogs
1) Video
2) Mass Customization + Software as Service (Saas)
3) 2 Way Communication (We the Media via blog and podcast)
4) Social Learning (Facebook + Ning + Wiki) John Dewey
5) Hands On Learning + Virtual Project Management
6) Information overload
7) Mobile and iPhone (Handheld)
8} Fundamental cultural and generational shift (Digital Natives)
9) Real time distance learning (Skype + Oovoo)
10) Findability for academic content
11) Entirely new communication + interaction + business models
12) Outsourcing in the labor force (Guru)
13) Simulation (World of Warcraft)
14) Crowd power and crowd sourced education (News Assignment.net, Digg, Yahoo Buzz)
15) Short attention spans
16) Distributed content
17) Global/Local
18) Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
19) Widgets
20) Personalized + Socialized experience (Google)
21) Personal branding and slash careers (micro-sourcing)
22) New Organizations and Movements (Unconferences of every shape and variety, Tweet Ups, Coworking, Jelly, Tech Stars)
23) Micro-movements
24) Social sharing (delicious, Digg, Stumbleupon, DocStoc, Scribed) and social media optimization
25) Rapid pace of change
I’m hoping to post a presentation on Slideshare which better communicates these ideas…
Here are the best 10 Open APIs for Web Designers and Developers
APIs, which stand for application programmable interfaces, are one of the ways niche content gets distributed online. Its a great way for web developers to get quality content for websites in a way that saves both time and money. (I believe most are open APIs):
10) Zillow local data API (see also Google, Yahoo, Yelp for more local and neighborhood data apis) Check out the Truila API for developers too (it has 2 apis: location info + truila stats) It would be interesting to research how real estate agents and web developers are using these apis. The Zillow api is probably the most popular of these.
–real estate APIs
–78 real estate mashups
The Community blogs at Alltop may also help. Here are some important questions for non profit social media managers to consider:
How does social media change the game for non-profits?
How can they do it productively?
What is the ROI?
How can they track the ROI?
How can social be integrated into the overall strategy?
I will have an upcoming post on the issue of social media ROI on the 4 C’s of social media. Stay tuned.
(creative commons flickr photo) Social Media Content Optimization with Whitepapers
Ive been looking at several niche social media platforms beyond the usual YouTube, Viddler, and Vimeo for video and even beyond Doc Stoc and Scribd for documents. For instance I recently ran across a great place to upload PDFs and whitepapers for social media pr called YuDu. What a fun name….huh??? Also Inked has fantastic looking package to wrap around your best whitepaper…inevitably they will make them more sticky.
Social Media Content Optimization with Video
In the video space, which combines the some slideshare features with the look of vimeo is Omnisio (unfortunately kind of hard to remember…but like omnicient). Why do a slidecast when you can do a video cast. Its where the folks from startup school decided to host their videos. I still think that Slideshare rocks and i imagine gets 50x or 100x the traffic…perhaps orders of magnitude more. Its a great platform for presenters, trainers, and elearning specialists to show of their wares and spread their message. I also think its a great place for universities to host content from conferences and lectures.
Social Media Content Optimization with Animation
Three other content optimization tips for professional animation. I really like the work my friend Mitch did here. Animoto is a fantastic free tool which animates photos with your music.
* Reach: Social media has overtaken email as the most popular consumer activity, according to a recent Nielsen study. Importantly, consumer growth is coming from an older demographic than social media’s historical base; for example, Facebook’s strongest growth is coming from 35-49 year-olds, adding twice as many 50-64-year-olds as opposed to those under 18. (Nielsen “Global Faces and Networked Places,” March 9, 2009; MediaPost Blogs Research Brief, “Social Networking Is No Respecter of Age,” March 18, 2009.) * Relationships: Social media’s strength is in the personal connections it enables, the peer-to-peer contact, providing reasons for consumers to visit regularly and for extended periods of time.
* Relevance: Consumers are extremely engaged with the content and connections that their friends are creating because of its personal relevance.
This is why I believe social media combined with search engine optimization proves to be the best strategy for clients be they non profits, entrepreneurs, or small businesses. Social media firms are generally about fluff and kumbaya moments and SEO firms are generally about out teching the other search engine results. Either tactic without the other is fundamentally incomplete. Getting a kumbaya moment without getting long term traffic by building rankings hardly builds your brand or value to your organization. On the flip side, out teching someone with search isn’t going to last over the long haul and doesn’t solve your need for engaging content. Only a synergy of the two can complete your communications package. Why aren’t you in social and search?
This presentation does a great job of pointing to the return on investment from social media campaigns that executives of business and nonprofit organizations can understand:
Top Ten Conversations to Listen for:
#10: The complaint
#9: The complement
#8: The problem
#7: The question or inquiry
#6: The campaign impact
#5: The crisis
#4: The competitor
#3: The crowd
#2: The influencer
#1: The point of need (the customer)
Companies and nonprofit organizations which lack a listening program are doing themselves a disservice by ignoring or some might say leaving on the table–the ability to understand, connect, and build relationships with core constituencies and influencers.
Aaron at Mashable has a great breakdown of key questions to ask to regarding social media ROI:
- Are we currently part of conversations about our product/industry?
- How are we currently talked about versus our competitors?
Then to measure success, we ask whether we were able to:
- Build better relationships with our key audiences?
- Participate in conversations where we hadn’t previously had a voice?
- Move from a running monologue to a meaningful dialogue with customers?
I’m a huge music fan. As such I’m always trying to find better ways to stream music online in a free and legal fashion. So, what are the best ways to listen and stream free music online?
Songza is free and legal (they pay the labels directly for your online streaming) It streams from YouTube and iMeem. IMeem might be worth chekcing out–I think it might just be better than songza–as YouTube videos vary in quality and generally run heavy on your machine which can lead to choppy music. And choppy music = antithetical to music streaming. iMeem does require a free sign up which takes about 60 seconds, but is well worth it.
Jengo music player is also free, legal, and available for your aural enjoyment. Jango has created a lot of buzz in mainstream outlets like USA Today and CNET. (i seem to remember that Jango requires a short sign up. Its interface has a lot of ads, but I don’t think it plays ads while the music is playing….which is quite a unique advantage)
Qload is cool and is based on YouTube videos. It has a nice music player feel.
Finally, Pandora is a big fallback for many in the online music crowd.
I think for most purposes its: iMeem vs. Jengo vs. Pandora depending how you are feeling.
Of course if you want to find related music you can use Last.Fm or Pandora. Both provide supurb results. I think they put iTunes genius in its place.
You can check other free music apps here or you may want to check out these music 2.0 sites (Warning: they may not all be legal)
Whats your favorite free music streaming service? What music social media application would you recommend?
Thanks for visiting. I hope my research and ideas provide insight into social entrepreneurship, innovation, and positive social change.
If you are in social enterprise or passionate about these issues feel free to connect via Twitter, Facebook, or Linked In.
Thanks and have a great day!
