Joe Wheeler is the Director of Business Development at igNew, one of the fiercest advocate’s for Louisville tech community, and a friend to the LDA. He asked for a megaphone to shout about a cause worthy of concern to every Louisville software geek, and we gladly gave him the keys to this here blog. Take it away, Joe…

I’ve had conversations with many of you about how to make Louisville, KY and the surrounding area the technology hot spot we all want it to be…so here is an opportunity to take another step in that direction.

By day Chris Theisen is the Director of Digital Communication for FlexPAC. By night he is a husband, father and social media junkie (ok thats all during the day too) The social media addiction led to his selection by the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee as one of the #social46 tasked with promoting Indianapolis and the events surrounding the Super Bowl. You can connect with him on a myriad of social networks viachristheisen.com. As Super Bowl XLVI is in Louisville’s virtual (and actual) backyard, we invited Chris to give us the lowdown on the digital outreach surrounding the big game.

When I received this tweet I was at once skeptical and excited:

@cjtheisen Your Klout has earned you a Perk! Be a part of the first ever Social Bowl #Social46 for @SuperBowl2012! bit.ly/xIVEhA

— Klout Perks (@KloutPerks) January 11, 2012

I’m guessing many of you have written or read posts on the topic of Klout. While us social media geeks could debate this aspect of the #social46 selection process ad nauseum — I will leave that for a later post (if I’m allowed back) — I was excited when I read about what the powers that be had in mind for the group. At its core the Social 46 group was selected to help promote the Super Bowl through social media. Whether it be the events leading up to and during Super Bowl week, or the myriad of initiatives started by the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee, our “job” is to make Indy the most socially connected Super Bowl in history. I like to call us the “online street team”

While the rollout of the first of its kind group hasn’t been without its hiccups, I applaud the city for realizing the power community-driven content can have on a major event. I have already answered numerous questions and dispelled myths from the Indy community about attending Super Bowl 46 events. This entire event is as much for the city as it is for visitors from regional cities such as Louisville.

As a Facebook friend of mine stated skeptically, “Isn’t every Super Bowl from here on out going to be the most socially connected?” Yes they should be. While social media monitoring and community engagement is nothing new, and the LDA is obviously well aware of this, it has rarely been tackled (football pun intended) on this scale. The host committee is driving this area of the operation into the future with a social media command center. Mashable had a nice write up about it the other day and fellow #social46 member @petetheplanner gave everyone a sneak peak behind the scenes just the other day.

While the bar has been set low from past Super Bowls I suspect Indy is going to set it rather high for future cities. I for one hope they all take our lead and better it. I would think the NFL is keeping its eyes on the Indy social media command center and wouldn’t be surprised to see it brought in house for future Super Bowls. The NFL is notorious for its control of Twitter and other media outlets related to its product so this seems to be a natural transition to me.

In the short time we have been given to promote the activities leading up to and surrounding the Super Bowl the #social46 have already written blog posts, curated a Storify, sent countless tweets and even leveraged traditional media (yes that still helps). In the days leading up to the Super Bowl many of us will be attending tweetups, visiting the Super Bowl Village, attending Media Day and the NFL Experience; all while our thumbs get a workout sharing tons of content.

If you can’t, or don’t plan to, attend Super Bowl 46 activities I encourage you to follow along with the #social46 hashtag. Hopefully you can get a bit of the experience virtually. If you are attending any of the great events of the next week and a half please reach out to myself and other members of the group when you get to Indy. All you need to know about Super Bowl 46 can be found at http://www.indianapolissuperbowl.com/

Do you see social media community involvement playing a bigger role in future Super Bowls? What about future large scale events of this kind? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

Image via Wikipedia

What’s the difference between an LLC and an S-Corp? What’s a term sheet? How to I get a Tax ID number? How do I buy insurance as a sole proprietor? How do I file taxes if I have a side business and a day job?

It’s questions like these — and a fear of the wrong answers — that keep too many potential Louisville-area entrepreneurs on the bench, rather than building the next world-changing startup. And the LDA is here to fix that.

Join Dan Heffernan, a biz dev expert from Jewish family Career Services, Bobby Ferreri, the executive director of EnterpriseCorp, and Steven D. Kerrick, one of the accountants-in-chief at Mountjoy Chilton Medley for a crash course in basic business incorporation. The startup-centric learn-a-thon goes down Wed. Jan 18 at 6:30 pm at Interactive Media Lab, 124 North First Street, 40202.

Knowledge is power. Learning conquers fear. LDA events get you out of the house. All are good reasons to congregate and educate with your fellow Louisville Digerati. If you’re ready to start your own business — or think you just might someday — you need to be at

this meeting, if only to learn what you don’t know. (You’ll get some actionable answers, too, we promise.)

Admission is free. Wisdom is priceless. Reserve your spot here.

See you on Wednesday.

When the US Congress returns from its winter recess this month, it will resume hearings on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). For those of use with a vested interest in the outcome of these hearings — which is to say, every human being with access to the Internet — the Louisville Digital Association would like to urge you to speak out against SOPA and urge your representatives to vote against it.

SOPA is designed to protect intellectual property against unlawful online infringement. Put more simply, it’s designed to shut down websites that help users download music, games and movies without paying for them. Regardless of whether you believe Internet infringement can or should be curtailed, we, the board of the Louisville Digital Association, submit that the remedies for infringement made legal by SOPA are a cure far worse than the disease.

SOPA requires that any site accused of infringing on intellectual property rights get the equivalent of an internet death penalty. It’s a death in four parts:

1. The infringing site’s DNS entry is blocked in the United States
2. The infringing site is omitted from search results served in the United States
3. The infringing site is blocked from receiving any funds from payment processors in the United States
4. The infringing site is blocked from US online ad networks

• The iPad created the tablet market, but can Apple hold on to it in 2012 — and if not, how will Android tablets steal it?
• Netflix, Amazon and games consoles are conspiring to crush conventional TV and cable subscriptions, but  will 2012 be the year cord-cutting finally goes mainstream?
• Bitcoin fizzled, but Google Wallet is going strong and PayPal isn’t going anywhere. Is 2012 the year banks and/or credit cards are finally cut out of the loop?

And you thought the Mayan Apocalypse was your most pressing concern for the coming year. We’ll tackle these topics and more at Predicting The Future of Everything (Well, Mostly Tech) in 2012 — and you can play along.

Join the LDA’s board of directors for a panel Q&A on the predictions for digital in 2012. The (almost) free discussion takes place Wednesday, Dec. 14 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at Interactive Media Lab, 124 North First Street. Hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar will stimulate the physical, the discussion will stimulate the mental. Got a question to pose for Louisville’s self-styled digital smarty-pantses? We’re ready to field it.

So what does almost free mean? Glad you asked. The LDA is collecting donations for Toys for Tots as part of our annual TweetDrive charity efforts. The price of admission to Predicting The Future of Everything is one new-in-box unwrapped toy, suitable for gift-giving to a child in need.

You can reserve your seat here. See you in the near future.

Erik Deckers, co-author of No Bullshit Social Media, will disprove the myths, knock down the excuses and show you the biggest reason why your business needs social media: because you want to make money. Erik is the co-owner and VP of Creative Services for Professional Blog Service in Indianapolis. He has been blogging since 1997, and has been a published writer for more than 24 years. Erik co-authored Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (Pearson, 2010). He also helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies. No Bullshit Social Media is his third book, which he co-wrote with Louisvillian Jason Falls.        

WHERE:

The Olmsted

3701 Frankfort Avenue

WHEN:

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Registration 11:30am

Program 12:00 noon – 1:00pm

RSVP:

Phone: 502-582-2444

Email: Julie@louisvilleadfed.org

www.louisvilleadfed.org

$28 AdFed and LDA Members

$40 Non-Members

Registration is available online however LDA members will need to register in advance through the AdFed office to receive the discounted rate.

No refunds or cancellations within 24 hours of the event. No-shows will be charged the full amount.

Image via Wikipedia

Behold, your curated list of the Top 3 Local Tech events for the week!

Mon Nov 21, 2011
Mother Automation Meeting [7pm - 8pm]
Where: LVL1 – 814 East Broadway Louisville, KY 40208
Description:
MOTHER is the automation/artificial intelligence system for the LVL1 Hackerspace. MOTHER is not easily defined as any one specific type of system, as the nature of MOTHER is to allow for automation and monitoring of any hardware or type of event that the user wishes. However, here is a short list of some of its primary features: Building Security, Automation of Lighting/HVAC/Power, and rouch screen control of the entire LVL1 space. If you’re interested in smart buildings and advanced hardware controls, you need to meet MOTHER. More info at http://wiki.lvl1.org/MOTHER.

Tue Nov 22, 2011
MyMobileVille monthly meeting [6:30pm - 8:30pm]
Where: Peak 10 – 733 Barret Ave Louisville, KY 40204
Description:
Have an Android phone? Come on out! iPhone? Come on out! Windows phone? Blackberry? Palm? Something else? Come on out! Can’t make it out? Attend virtually! Our Main objective is to share and learn more about these awesome devices! And you DON’T have to be a geek to attend! Yes, many of us fall into the mobile geek category, but we always have “regular” people in attendance as well! If you haven’t been to one of our meetings, you don’t know what you’re missing! Everyone who attends a meeting walks away learning something! More info: http://mymobileville.com/meetings/.

[CORRECTION: We inaccurately listed the next IdeaMorning Breakfast as occurring this Friday, Nov. 25. The IdeaMorning with JK McKnight will actually occur on Friday, Dec. 2. Sorry for the confusion.]

For those that attended our How to Optimize Your Business Social Profiles lecture last night, you know precisely how awesome both Jason Loehr’s presentation and the discussion it sparked really were. Everything from basic LinkedIn best practices to Google Plus’s as-yet-unreleased Direct Connect features to the inner workings of Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm was covered. If you missed the event, you truly missed out.

Not to worry, though. Jason’s Social Optimization presentation deck is available online. Read, download, and pass it on. Hurry, before Facebook changes their interface or Google updates their SEO mechanics again!

Image by KEXINO via Flickr

Google+ just unveiled their answer to Facebook’s business-and-brand-centric Pages called…heh…Google+ Pages. Facebook just got its hand slapped by the FTC for privacy violations, so yet more interface and policy changes are at work over there.  Meanwhile, LinkedIn is still the most business-centric of all social networks, which may be why no one ever talks about it.

So where, and how, should businesses list themselves on the social web? Glad you asked, because the Louisville Digital Association is stepping up to answer on Wednesday, Nov. 16 with How to Optimize Social Profiles for Business, a lecture on best practices delivered by members of the LDA board. We’ll cover how to:

• Use the Facebook page of your business to attract more fans and customers
• Set up a Google+ profile for your business
• Optimize your company’s presence on LinkedIn
• Apply best practices for business profiles for your individual social media profiles as well

The knowledge will be dropped at the DeVry University campus (our sponsors for this event), 10172 Linn Station Road, Suite 300, Louisville, KY 40223. Networking begins at 6:30 p.m. and food from Firehouse Subs will be provided.

Seating is limited (as are the free munchies) so reserve your spot here.

Ryan Szrama, founder and lead developer of Drupal Commerce, will be headlining a panel of local open-source all-stars at the KY Open Source Society (KYOSS) meeting at 6pm tonight at LVL1, 814 E. Broadway. If you’re not heading to the Kickstarter Crowdfunding workshop (or the Pixies concert), you owe it to your FOSS-fostering self to stop buy.

John Hicks, president of KYOSS, pitches us thusly:

This panel is going to be a fine assemblage of talent representing a full range of open source projects. Be sure to be there!

• Ryan Dzrama – Founder and lead developer of Drupal Commerce
• Scott Ullrich and Chris Buechler – The two forces behind pfSense, the leading open source firewall
• Jeff Squyres – Cisco developer who leads the Open MPI (Message Passing Interface) project.
• Mike (Stew) O’Connor – Developer and committer for Debian.

(If you’re involved in an open source project, you’re welcome to join the panel!)

6:30 p.m.: Nibble and network
7:00 p.m.: Panel on Open Source Projects
Later: Huddle and scheme (also, SIGs may want to meet)

More good news: Chris tells me the new Level 2 Meeting Room is ready to be used, so it looks like we may be christening it tomorrow night! (With improved acoustics and that fantastic library (thanks, Raj et al.) this new space promises to be awesome!)

See you there!

You heard the man: See you there!