Filed under: Charlotte, community services, information design, innovation, social media | Tags: apps, big apps, Charlotte, crowdsourcing, mashup, netflix prize, new york city, uservoice, washington dc
311 app logo via Apps for Democracy
I’ve been intrigued by a crowdsourcing challenge New York City is sponsoring that invites developers to submit solutions for new city apps in exchange for fame and a cash prize. They are not the first to host such a contest – Washington DC did one last year. For a mere $50K, these “non-profits” were able to solicit 230 resident insights and 47 applications in 30 days!
These challenges is that they blend two good innovation ingredients together:
- An attempt to understand what kinds of apps would be useful to consumers by collecting insights and needs. The last thing my iPhone wants is an App that doesn’t solve a problem that people care about. Both the DC and NYC contests leverage UserVoice to do this.
- A data mine for developers. Big cities have lots of data that probably doesn’t get used, but if applied in a good context, you could end up with interesting results. Making the data available promotes transparency and probably helps developers test their apps. This reminds me of the super-successful Netflix Prize, where the company provided real data to help contestant programmers improve its recommendation algorithm.
I know that there are lots of clever developers in Charlotte. I wonder what unique apps would help our own residents? I know I could have used one today that tells me where the closest Wi-Fi signal is both free and strong based on where I am.
Filed under: arts and creativity, Charlotte, innovation trends | Tags: "yes and...", brainstorming, Charlotte, creativity, funny bone, ideation, improv, second city
I’ve been fortunate to take a handful of improv workshops during my life for different reasons, but it wasn’t until one from grad school (led by a Second City member, no less) that I realized its influence in innovation.
When brainstorming, I encourage using the phrase, “Yes, and…” to make sure everyone reserves judgment of others’ ideas. Generally, we find ourselves practicing the opposite, readily dismissing the kernels of a new idea without airing it out to see if someone can improve upon it.
Improv teaches us how to “live in the moment,” which can actually be a frightening place, but this is where the purest level of creativity (and comedy) live in your subconscious. Many workshops are geared to get people out of their shells, but they can also get them out of the box.
Here is a wonderful write-up with 10 principles of improv where you can easily see how they might be applied to a business setting.
And here is a free workshop put on by Funny Bone in Charlotte next week. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to check it out because of another event, so I’m hoping for another one at a future date.
Filed under: arts and creativity, Charlotte | Tags: Charlotte, charlotte viewpoint, civic by design, creativity, harvey b. gantt center
flickr photo credit: benrybobenry
The friendly folks at Civic By Design and Charlotte Viewpoint are hosting what promises to be an interesting, interactive “mini-conference” on Thursday, October 15th at 6pm called Making Charlotte Smarter.
I’ll be checking it out, and I’ll also use it as an opportunity to peek at the brand-spanking new Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture in Uptown.
Registration is only $20 and can be found here.
Filed under: Charlotte, consumer behavior, retail and restaurants, sports | Tags: Charlotte, fantasy football, hickory tavern, jetblue, midtown sundries, retail and restaurants, social media, WFAE
In honor of the NFL season kicking off this week, I highlight Scott Graf’s amusing story on WFAE about local bars that host groups who conduct their fantasy football drafts. Though I’m not an active fantasy sports fan myself, I know plenty of people who are, and I’ve always found this market and the tons of products that target them fascinating.
I do, however, like to fantasize about the conversations that marketing and development groups have when they’re trying to decide whether or not to try something a little more innovative and counter to what’s commonly done. Can you imagine what that Jetblue meeting was like when they were deciding if they should try its “All-you-can-Jet ” unlimited travel pass?
It probably wasn’t quite as hard to convince the management of Midtown Sundries or Hickory Tavern to create special packages for fantasy football leagues, it’s still fun to reverse engineer what they might have been thinking, and then use that to inspire other ideas.
Boy, what would the package for a celebrity funeral at an amusement park look like?
Filed under: 2 min mindmap, Charlotte, community services | Tags: charitable needs, Charlotte, mindmap, Mission Possible, volunteer
I just realized I missed the deadline for entries after I got around to creating a mindmap for the Mission Possible project, so I guess I’ll post it here. Maybe there’s a nugget of an idea in there somewhere for the folks who didn’t procrastinate like I unfortunately did.
In my original conversation with Steve Gunn, we talked about how framing a problem in a specific way makes it easier to solve. In this case, a smaller, yet very real problem in the area of charitable needs is not actually getting more volunteers, but rather, how might we get them to commit their time consistently?
click for larger
Filed under: branding, Charlotte, community services | Tags: cats, Charlotte, Charlotte Talks, emotional needs, pat mccrory, public transit, WFAE
flickr photo credit: james willamor
I attended a live taping of Charlotte Talks/WFAE Public Conversation and the topic, “Charlotte: On the way to Becoming…” stirred up wonderful dialogue about Charlotte’s future and quality of life through real estate, the environment, industry, and diversity.
The panelists shared rich, colorful examples to illustrate how a few short-sighted decisions can negatively affect the shape of the feel of a city. But Mayor Pat McCrory also told a positive story about the brave effort to ensure the transit system (CATS and LYNX,) was always clean and free of advertising. In doing so, they sacrificed a big revenue stream, but knew that people would feel safer if buses and light rail cars were clean and clearly branded.
The need “to feel safe” is emotional, and it’s not always obvious how that that manifests itself in a brand or solution. And it was probably difficult to calculate the ROI for developing (or in this case, not developing) that feature. In hindsight, however, it’s easy to see how the choice positively affects ridership in the long run.
Listen to the whole taping here.
Filed under: arts and creativity, Charlotte, innovation, science and technology | Tags: Charlotte, enventys, essay contest, inventors digest, louis foreman, national inventors month
photo via inventorsdigest.com
In addition to partnering with individuals and companies to bring new product ideas to life, publishing Inventor’s Digest is one of many innovation activities that Charlotte entrepreneur Louis Foreman and his team tackle over at Enventys.
If you can get your hands on the printed edition of the magazine, do it. The editors have done a bang-up job of reinventing the look and feel of the layout and the articles. (They’re still working on getting the web presence is waiting to match.)
In honor of National Inventors Month, the magazine is sponsoring a contest inviting young readers to submit 500-word essays on what technology, tool, product or service will be an important part of our lives in 50 years. The new deadline is September 30th.
I feel like the world has changed quite a bit in the lifespan of the kids that are eligible (ages 12-17,) so it will be fun to see how they envision the future.
Filed under: Charlotte, community services, social media | Tags: back to school, bus system, Charlotte, Charlotte Observer, charlotte viewpoint, CMS, education, google flu trends, hyperlocal, parents, social media, swine flu, twitter
flickr photo credits: NIOSH + michael mx5tx
I’ve been cooking up an article for Charlotte Viewpoint about the role of social media in delivering hyperlocal news for Charlotteans. One of the examples I reference is a company called CleverCommute.com, which is simply an application that provides service updates on commuter lines through text messages posted by fellow commuters.
With yesterday as the official first day Charlotte-Mecklenburg students (begrudgingly) return to their classrooms, I thought about how that concept might also be helpful to the parents (and other locals stuck in the related traffic.)
I noticed that April Bethea of the Charlotte Observer encouraged parents to tweet their “first day of school” stories and pictures for all to enjoy. Also entwined are concerns about the spread of swine flu in schools, and I can imagine Google’s Flu Trends serving up data, in real time, to local parents deciding whether or not to send their child to school on a particular day.
Hyperlocal news delivery is quickly evolving all around us. Where else in our lives will it sneak in?
Filed under: branding, Charlotte, retail and restaurants | Tags: Charlotte, food lion latina, food marketing institute, grocery stores, hispanic market, sabor latino
logo via food lion
Charlotte-based Food Lion recently revamped 19 of their stores as “Sabor Latino” (translation: Latin Flavor) as part of an innovative response to their changing demographics.
Consumer research in the field was an integral part of the scoping process, as Food Lion’s marketing manager Daniel Herrera said in a retail panel discussion last week. The re-branded pilot is doing well and picked up on the many subtleties of the Hispanic shopper. According to this article and the Food Marketing Institute, Hispanic households spend more time and money at the grocery store than the rest of us, and they shop more frequently to pick up fresh ingredients.
I haven’t seen any reviews or pictures of the new format since the converted stores are only in the Triangle area, but Charlotteans will get to enjoy their new grocery options in September. I easily envision plenty of curious non-Hispanic customers finding wandering Sabor Latino aisles, since it might be intimidating for them to shop in non-English speaking ethnic stores.
