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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.

• 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.

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.

Image by HowardLake via Flickr

Today is the first annual Geeksgiving, a (hopefully) yearly online drive by LDA members to raise awareness of, and donations for, a worthwhile Louisville charity. This year, we’re rallying support for the Home of the Innocents, which provides care and shelter for homeless and medically fragile children in and around Louisville.

To participate in Geeksgiving, we’re asking for exactly two things from every member of the Louisville Digital community:

1. Donate to Home of the Innocents
2. Spread the word about Geeksgiving

Donations

The Home of the Innocents is in desperate need of several critical items, as detailed in this Amazon Wishlist:

http://amzn.com/w/2HRN0XV8F0VO9.

Pick a few items, punch in a credit card, and you’ll have made a world of difference in the lives of Louisville’s most vulnerable children. All donations should be shipped to:

Home of the Innocents
1100 East Market Street
Louisville, KY 40206
502.596.1025

Can’t decide on which of the several items to give? Cash is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Monetary donations can be made here:

https://www.homeoftheinnocents.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=272.

A bit short on cash? No worries. The Home of the Innocents also welcomes donations in kind of any new or gently-used items from this needs list:

http://www.homeoftheinnocents.org/Page.aspx?pid=274.

Items in bold are most needed, but all donations are graciously welcome.

Spreading the Word

Take the three links above, and blast them to every follower, friend, connection and contact you’ve got in your address book or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ (or even MySpace) profiles. Blog about it. Chat about it. Skype about it. Even call people on this antiquated device called a telephone. Whatever it takes to get the word out that the Home of the Innocents is in need of our assistance. Between noon and 9pm today, there should be no one you know who doesn’t know about Geeksgiving.

 
 Tweet
 
 
The Louisville Digital community is capable of greatness. Today, let’s harness that potential for the greater good.

Let’s all celebrate Geeksgiving.

For those of you planning to volunteer in person for Geeksgiving at Home of the Innocents tomorrow, here are details via HOI’s Linda Medley:

Attached is a campus map for dissemination.  “Geeksgiving Central” will be in the Kay & Jim Morrissey Advanced Therapy Center (North end of campus) in the therapy gym.  We will have signs posted for those volunteers who come and go from Noon until 9:00 p.m.  We have a series of user names and passwords for your convenience and will be testing connectivity and speed well before you guys are due to arrive.  And of course we will be available throughout that entire period to provide information and help with trouble shooting should the need arise.

Volunteers can park on Mellwood, which runs parallel to the Advanced Therapy Center.  There is also parking in front, and across from the ATC.  If that seems tight then feel free to park in Lot A wherever there is availability.

For those with particular aspirations of (or aversions to) appearing on television, Mayor Greg Fischer is expected to visit the Geeksgiving command center at Home of the Innocents between 6 and 7pm tomorrow, likely with the local media in tow. Plan your presence accordingly.

As always, you can help Geeksgiving from anywhere, but if you’d like to sit shoulder to shoulder with some fellow geek-givers, we’re certainly glad to have you.

BONUS: Louisville’s own Gyroskope will be hosting a Geeksgiving Afterparty at 9pm at Butchertown Pub & Studios, 1335 Story Avenue. Any and all Geeksgiving participants are welcome.

Leia the Riveter courtesy RedBubble

As part of Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer’s Give A Day week of service, the Louisville Digital Association is spearheading Geeksgiving, a pledge drive to generate donations and support for the Home of the Innocents. From noon to 9pm, a group of LDA volunteers — which can and should include you — will be using online tools to urge our citizens to donate goods and cash to one of the Derby City’s most deserving charities.

In other words, for nine hours on Oct. 19 we’ll be tweeting, blogging, Facebook-ing and G+-ing our fingers off until our various and sundry online followers have stocked Home of the Innocents with all the supplies it needs to keep Louisville’s most vulnerable citizens safe, warm, and able to face the holiday season with some measure of dignity and comfort. (We’ll even resort ot LinkedIn, AOL and MySpace if we have to.)

If you’d like to be part of the Geeksgiving team, register here. All it takes is a commitment to spread the word during the nine hours of Geeksgiving (and hyping the Geeksgiving event in advance). Work from home, the office, pretty much anywhere you’ve got Internet connectivity. If you’d like to be part of the in-person team working from Home of the Innocents during Geeksgiving, contact us. We’d love to have you there, sharing the strength of Louisville geeks united in service to a good cause.

It’s time to show Louisville what the power of Geekdom harnessed for good can accomplish. Register for Geeksgiving today.

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As per October tradition, the Louisville Digital Association elected its new Board of Directors and Board Officers for the 2011-2012 operating year. In other words, these are the new folks in charge. While Jay Garmon (me) was retained as President, the remaining three Officer positions saw new faces, and there was healthy turnover in the remaining Directorships. Check the leadership roster below for details.

President: Jay Garmon
After proposing the transformation of the former Social Media Club of Louisville into the LDA, Jay was tasked with actually making the transition happen. In other words, this is all his fault, so they won’t let him stop. In his mild-mannered alter-ego, Jay is the Marketing Director for one-time Louisville (now Boston) startup Backupify. Jay refused to move to Beantown with his job, and his inspiration for the LDA was in part a desire to ensure no other Louisville tech company has to make that choice again.

Vice President: Grace Simrall
The LDA”s Hacker-in-Chief, Grace is a top-flight Business Intelligence consultant by day and the the LDA’s liason to LVL1 and the the larger Louisville maker community by night.

Treasurer: Nick Huhn
Digital strategy consultant slash tech startup co-founder, the LDA is designed to create more Nick Huhns, and Nick is here to make sure we can keep paying for catering at our events.

Secretary: Deborah Boyer
Despite her years as a number-crunching business consultant and turnaround specialist, Deborah still finds time to serve on several charitable boards and activites, including the LDA where she’s our lead ambassador to other non-profits here in town.

Directors:

• Jason Falls (formerly Secretary)
  One of the country’s Top 10 Social Media consultants, we aren’t letting Falls get away no matter how busy he gets.
• David Finch (formerly Treasurer)
  Our man at Doe Anderson and one of our many Bloggers At Large, Finch brings the quiet wisdom to our proceedings.
• Jason Hiner
  Our favorite star from CBS (Interactive), Hiner is our direct link to the tech journalism circuit nationally and internationally.
• Ben Jennings
  Our resident inside man at the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, Jennings keeps us in the loop on public tech financing and legislation.
• Michelle Jones (formerly Vice President)
  The voice behind Consuming Louisville, Let Them Tweet Cake, and, in addition to her notable tech savvy, our emissary to the larger Possibility Citizenry
• Jason Loehr
  One of the mad men behind Mad*Pow Creative, Loehr is the utility man who tackles everything from design projects to fundraising collateral, and does it with style.

Retiring Directors:

• Elle Waters
• Jim McDonnell
• Chris Hall

If anything good comes from the Louisville Digital Association in the next 12 months, this is who to thank. If it all goes down in flames, it was Garmon’s fault.

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When pundits discuss the “post-PC era” that’s code for a world where more people surf the web on smartphones than conventional computers. And that world is now. If you’re marketing online and not focusing on the mobile space, you’re missing the biggest target out there.

LDA’s own Jim McDonnell, the guru of emerging channels at Papa John’s, has been perfecting the art of selling pizza via smartphones for years. On Oct. 4, he’ll show you the roadmap he developed at the cost of thousands of dollars, and let you in on the dirty secrets of mobile marketing. Join us at the Price Weber auditorium, 10701 Shelbyville Road, from 6:30-8:30 pm as the LDA gets the down-low on mobile marketing. (There will be hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar, so we’ve got that goin’ for us, which is nice, too.)

Seating is limited, so reserve your spot today.

Admission is free. The wisdom is priceless.

It’s been too long since the Louisville Digital Association socialized, so we’re teaming up with Cardinal Venture Club for a Louisville Tech Happy Hour at Flanagan’s Ale House, 934 Baxter Avenue, from 6-9pm on Friday, Aug. 19.

Come rub elbows and trade war stories with the University of Louisville’s most entrepreneurial MBA students and/or the Derby City’s top tech talent — and enjoy some cocktails and pub fare while you’re at it. There’s no better way to round out your work week.

Admission is free (but the food ain’t) and reservations are not required, though if you’d register on Facebook we’d be mighty obliged. See you next Friday!