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.

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!

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!

Image via Wikipedia

Rather than flood you with the full list of Louisville tech workshops, meetups and throwdowns, we’ve curated a top three for your retweeting pleasure. For a complete River City techno-calendar, visit Louisville Digital’s Upcoming Events page.

Crowdfunding Means Business: A Workshop for New and Small Businesses [Wed Nov 9, 2011 6pm - 8pm]
Main Library • 301 York Street • Louisville, KY Centennial Room (basement)
Explore online funding platforms to get your small business off theground. This workshop focuses on Kickstarter.com — a crowdfunding site for creative projects with clearly defined goals and expectations. Reservations and prescreening required. (502) 574-5866 CAPenterprise@LouisvilleKy.gov

Let Them Tweet Cake [Thu Nov 10, 2011 6:30pm - 8:30pm]
Sweet Surrender • 1804 Frankfort Avenue Louisville, KY
Welcome to Let Them Tweet Cake – the organization for women interested in technology and media in Louisville, Kentucky. Let Them Tweet Cake offers women opportunities for socializing, learning, networking,mentoring, volunteering, finding inspiration and inspiring others.

Kinect Hacking (Windows) Workshop [Sat Nov 12, 2011 2pm - 4pm]
LVL1 Hackerspace • 814 E. Broadway, Louisville, KY
Learn the basics of reading data from a Kinect input device with your Windows-based machine (and then using said data to devise super-cool apps for fun and profit). Windows-based laptop required.

TUESDAY NOV. 1, 2011

[9am - 10am] Louisville Metro Inventors Council’s (LMIC) November meeting

Where: Nucleus – 201 E. Jefferson Street Louisville KY

Description:

Louisville Metro Inventors Council’s (LMIC) November meeting will take place at Nucleus (201 E. Jefferson Str.) and will feature John Weinrich, VP of Business Development for Advanced Business Solutions, who is dedicated to helping inventors and entrepreneurs re-invent themselves and the world around them.

[8pm - 10pm] LVL1 Open Meeting & Making

Where: LVL1 Hackerspace – 814 E. Broadway, Louisville, KY

Description:

LVL1 Open Meeting and Making at 8pm. All are welcome to come by. Checkout what projects are going on and geek out for a little while!

WEDNESDAY NOV. 2, 2011

[9am - 11:30am] Design Centered Manufacturing Workshop

Where: Galt House Hotel – 141 N 4th Street Louisville, KY 40202

Description:

Join a panel of Innovators and Entrepreneurs at the Design Centered Manufacturing Workshop from 9am to 11:30am. Panelists include strategist Stuart Rosenfeld, entrepreneur Heather Howell, Lou Lenzi of GE Appliances, and Drura Parrish of PR&vD. Registration is FREE but required: http://manufacturingdesign.eventbrite.com/

[11:30am - 2pm] Venture Connectors Luncheon

Where: Galt House Hotel – 141 N 4th Street Louisville, KY 40202

Description:

To RSVP and pay for the next luncheon of The Venture Club, please fill out the below form. Then click on the “Submit” button. Visitors/Guests will be charged $45, our normal luncheon fee. Walk-ins will be charged $50. Members’ dues cover all luncheons. Members may bring guests at$40. For members or guests, we do request notice of cancellation the Friday before the scheduled luncheon. This is because we must make our reservations with the hotel well in advance of the meeting. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE CALL OUR OFFICE AT 589-6868. https://www.ventureclub-louisville.org/luncheons-and-events/monthly-luncheons/rsvp-for-luncheon

[4pm - 9:30pm] Startup Slam – Lexington Road Trip

Where: Southeast Christian Church, Parking Lot B – 920 Blankenbaker Parkway, Louisville, KY 40243-1845

Description:

If you all remember, the last Start-Up Slam held in August began the first leg of our mission to connect both the Louisville and Lexington Startup Communities. There was literally a bus full of Lexington startups and entrepreneurs who traveled here to meet and greet with many Louisville startups and entrepreneurs. Now, the opportunity is here for the Louisville startup community to complete the round trip by going to Lexington and communing with the Lexington startups. All this is in an effort to bridge both entrepreneurial communities and create synergies that otherwise haven’t existed. Thus, if you don’t know a lot about what’s going on in Lexington, use this as a fun, risk-free opportunity to meet, greet, and learn about our partner to the east! SAVE THE DATE! We will be traveling BY COMMERCIAL BUS to Lexington on Wednesday, November 2nd (details are below and at the event registration page). The bus will travel beginning at 4pm – there is a small fee of $25, but did I mention that this INCLUDES DRINKS! Register, spread the word, and bask in the growing entrepreneurial spirit of Kentucky! (Note: There is a capacity limit of 55 people for the bus BUT even if you don’t go on the bus, please join us in Lexington). Event Registration Page: www.start-upslam.eventbrite.com

[5:30pm - 8pm] Startup Slam – Lexington

Where: Natasha’s Bistro & Bar – 112 Esplanade, Lexington, 40507

Description:

Bringing Louisville and Lexington entrepreneurs together to build a stronger tech community! Attendees include: local entrepreneurs, business owners, investors and others in the startup community. If you need more specific details on the bus, please contact Tendai Charasika: tcharasika@greaterlouisville.com and 502-625-0140

http://start-upslam.eventbrite.com/

THURSDAY NOV. 3, 2011

[10am - 11am] STARTUP WEBINAR: Hitting the Target – Learn Proven Ways to Discover & Keep Your First Customers

Where: Online

Description:

FREE Registration: http://bit.ly/HittingTheTarget Featured Speakers: Randall Stevens (Serial Entrepreneur & Founder of Punndit.com) & Steve Huey (COO of Inc. 5000 and Recently Acquired Learning House.com) As an early-stage, startup company you will have the opportunity to learn from serial entrepreneur Randall Stevens proven ways to discover your first customers early and in parallel to your product development lifecycle. These keys to success will empower you to be more confident that you are building a product that your first customers find valuable enough to pay for. A leader in product development and COO of recently acquired The Learning House, Inc., Steve Huey will discuss what to do after you have launched your product to market and what it takes to keep your customers by delivering the products they expect.

[8pm - 10pm] White Star Balloon Group

Where: LVL1 Hackerspace – 814 E. Broadway, Louisville, KY

Description:

Come and be a part of the citizen science project to conquer the global stratosphere, using our own robots.

SATURDAY NOV. 5, 2011

[1pm - 5pm] LVL1 Freeduino Workshop

Where: LVL1 Hackerspace – 814 E. Broadway, Louisville, KY

Description: Solder together your own Freeduino! Seating is limited!