I+A is really excited for fellow the Highlight Midwest alums and all around good guys that make up team Swindlr. They are launching their first product “Zappn” with a party in the crossroads.
Be sure to come out and support the launch of this social media\events service born in Kansas City. You can RSVP here.
Zappn is a utilitarian web and mobile destination that allows the planner of a public or private social gathering to manage an event at all stages of its life.
Swindlr created zappn on the certainty that the technology exists to create, manage, and share events in a way that has never been done before. Zappn.com is a complete, multi-faceted management tool based on multiple, individual perspectives of a social gathering and the desire to share those perspectives with others. No longer will all images of one event have to reside in so many different places, unavailable to those who want them most. With zappn.com everything is easily accessible in one spot.
Swindlr invites you to the exclusive launch of their first product zappn.com. After 2 years in the making, swindlr LLC. is ready to release zappn.com to the public.
Hosted by Chase Hawkins & Brock Masterson
Friday, May 29th 2009
Arts Incubator
115 W. 18th St. KCMO 64108
Hors d’oeuvres and Cocktails @ 7
Special Performance from Kansas City’s own – NOMATHMATICS @ 9
*** Please RSVP @ www.zappn.com/launch by May 27th. ***
When you RSVP, This will guarantee you instant entry to the event.
Before we get to the wrap up be sure to check out an Ideas and Angles exclusive interview mentioned on Entrepeneur.com. Nice to see another example of local companies being a part of the national discussion.
Friday morning showed us a Kansas City Social Media Club breakfast with a lot of new and interesting faces. We had a great turnout and discussion. The main topic of the morning was similar to our most recent blog post about the pressures and obstacle’s social media faces as it gets more mainstream in its reach.
Tara had a great response to the article. Pushing against some of my doomsday like predictions she said (paraphrasing) that if you build up a good reputation for customer service online a blunder might not be such a death blow but if dealt with the right way it can be excused by the community for what it is…a simple mistake. As long as it is an honest one.
There is a lot of good things being put out by SMCKC’ers right now…
The Life In The Tubes crew has a great new video featuring Sam. Geekvolution’s robot front man. Showing off their high end graphic intensive social networking platform. I have been lucky enough to see Geekvolution grow since Bar Camp KC and look forward to more news of Ryan Flannagan’s hard work.
Lisa continues her 40 day blogging series talking about the people that helped instill something very important to her. Making business personal. She thanks and talks about different people and their impacts on her life and the way she goes about it. Really inspirational set of posts from a very inspirational person.
Jenn told us about all the good work the Social Lites are doing and explained that there is a lot changing behind the scenes to be released. Our sister company continues to impress.
Whitney Matthews represented Spiral 16 and talked about their collaborative project with PBS at SxSW coming up. Looking forward to seeing what comes of this.
Those are just a few of the things people brought to the table that morning. We are so lucky to be associated with a group of people so passionate about what we do. Keep making things happen. We believe in the opportunities in Kansas City and the abilities for ideas that are made here to change the world.
Whitney provides an excellent breakdown of a recent campaign to show off the opening of the AMC Fork and Screen Theater in Olathe. There was a lot of effort put forth to reach out to local bloggers and the results were very positive. Be sure to check out her post and the interesting way in which the metrics for success are presented by Spiral16’s software.
AMC took a bold step and realized the way to communicate the excitment about their new facility was in opening the place up and letting it speak for itself. Instead of forcing marketing speak on customers and having to control the conversation they put local influencers in a position to create the conversation and were rewarded in rich content that they didn’t even author and targeted exposure of their brand to customers.
With the happenings of the event so well covered we wanted to post a few thoughts on other things that we took from the experience.
We are not alone. Sometimes in this journey we feel like we have been speaking another language. Bringing these emerging technologies to new people is a fun process but it can be tedious at times. It was comforting to see that others are passionate about social media and ideas to ignite companies new and old. Other people are going through some of the obstacles Ideas and Angles faces as an upstart technology firm.
Even better than being energized by people that have the same loves and interests we do was seeing those synapses fire for people who were not previously exposed to a lot of the ideas presented at Highlight Midwest. During the presentations at the evening session I stood towards the back of the room keeping an eye on some of the people I had met who were there as outsiders looking in. You could see the light bulbs go on, and the gears start to turn.
The post event chatter has focused a lot on the excitement in the relationships built between all the attendees from the different cities and how to keep those relationships strong. Using our shared experiences in a supporting role to lift all boats up at the same time. As amped as we are to have all these smart people as allies we would like to encourage everyone to keep striving to find ways to connect with people who don’t know about emerging technologies. Work to be the bridge that lets someone discover the power of social media and upstart entrepreneurship.
Thanks to everyone for the conversation, laughs, ideas, and inspiration.
The excitment for HM just keeps building and building. The travel plans are being set and twitter hashtags are cascading across social media streams. There is still space available for the October 29th event.
- Ideas and Angles will be presenting at the focused highlights session during the day to discuss some of the things we have been learning and some of our thoughts on how to help small businesses use social media to improve their overall marketing plans and customer interactions.
-Chris will be presenting the Kansas City overview at the evening reception bringing together all the Kansas City projects into the mix.
- Zach and Chris will be sitting on the post presentation panel in the evening dicussing actionable items along the terms of ‘What Now?’
Highlight Midwest
Thanks to a good friend of I+A and the event’s New Media Correspondant Jeff Smith for putting together this Highlight Midwest information stream to help keep track of the daily happenings as we get closer to go time.
Highlight Midwest showcases the entrepreneurs, innovators, and early-adopters using web technology to grow their businesses, advance their careers, and enrich the regional economy in new ways.
Three of the area’s up and coming social media strategists will present an overview on how the web is changing their cities for the better and how new opportunities for innovation are expanding the importance of web-based technology in the Midwest.
Ideas and Angles has been chosen to present the Kansas City portion of this exciting event bringing together a lot of projects and companies from around the midwest. We encourage everyone to check out HighlightMidwest.org for information leading up to the October 29th event. You can also follow @highlightmw on Twitter.
This exciting opportunity is happening at the Boulevard Brewery. The workshop will be Thursday, September 25th and will cover negotiation and marketing & sales. The speakers will be Bill Garcia, Negotiating for Success and Bob Sullivan, the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for Boulevard Brewing Company. They both have tremendous backgrounds and very interesting stories to share. It should be a great time.
The best part, if you mention Ideas and Angles upon registration, you will get a discount of $50! Bringing the total price to $149 down from $199. Be sure to drop a line to @IdeasAndAngles on twitter or christopher.culbertson[at]gmail[dot]com if you use the price break and plan on attending.
Although the workshop itself does not involve social media, we would like to organize a breakfast the day after to discuss topics from the workshop and how they can be applied through social media.
So, recap. Thursday, September 25th, an all day workshop on negotiation and sales & marketing with lunch included and a $50 discount for mentioning Ideas and Angles. Then Friday, September 26th, 7:30am breakfast at First Watch in Westport to discuss how to apply social media to the key points discussed at the workshop.
An important part of social media is finding ways to apply regular business lessons and practices through different mediums. Have you learned something from a workshop or speaker that you were able to transition into social media? Please share it with us and we hope to see you at there!
You can get more info about the event and sign up information by clicking here. (PDF)
Had the pleasure of making the breakfast meeting for the Kansas City Social Media Club this morning. A lot of familiar places in the social community were there. It has become apparent there are a lot of hard working people taking on a lot of adventurous projects in the area. It is fun meeting and conversing with people that have the same passion for emerging technologies and are working on them in their own unique way. There is talk of setting up an informal panel moving forward to keep the flow of ideas going. There is also going to be an online resource that is going to have more usability and access to information. Thanks to everyone who came out this morning. Below is a video of everyone talking via Jeff.
