It’s an exciting time to be in Louisville, there are a lot of things going on but one of our big questions here at the LDA is what more is needed in tech and entrepreneurship – the focus of LDA. It is spring, it’s time for change, it’s time to make things happen, it’s time to grow – so come join LDA as we discuss what you think it takes to help grow Louisville’s entrepreneurial and tech communities.

This is for all you social media mavens, you corporate maybe entrepreneurs, you “I’ve got a small  gig on the side” or you I’m growing a business folks.  You see  the people in all these groups are related and how fast and large any one of our areas grows helps drive the others.

So come listen as Jason Falls asks our local helpers and our audience what needs to take place over the next year or so to continue moving Louisville forward. Our guests include Ted Smith, Chief, Economic Growth and Innovation at Louisville Metro Government; Tendai Charasika, Long time Business Supporter and Newly appointed Executive Director at Enterprise Corp and some of the leadership of other service groups around town – like LDA and Forge.

Come get your questions answered and let your voice be heard at this event . This coming Wednesday, May 22nd, at the iHub in Louisville.

Tell us what you want – so we can help give it to you! To sign up – go to: sign up

Noted author, speaker and digital content maven C.C. Chapman will join Louisville Digital Association for an evening of Amazing Things, Tuesday, April 30 from 6:30 until 8:30 p.m. at Interactive Media Lab, 124 North First Street, Louisville, KY. Admission is free and the event is open to the public. Hors d’oeuvres will be served. We will move to the bar across the street after the meeting for more fun and learning.

Chapman’s latest book, Amazing Thing Will Happen, is an uplifting work dedicated to his children. He’ll field questions about it, his charitable projects, travels and digital and social media marketing perspectives from LDA board members as well as those in attendance.

“C.C. Chapman is one of the trailblazers in social media,” LDA director Jason Falls said. “From his Managing The Gray podcasts to his innovative brand work with agencies like Crayon and The Advance Guard to his books, blog and incredible side projects for charity, he’s shown many individuals and companies how to use passion and content to drive business. We’re going to learn a lot from C.C. this month!”

In addition to Amazing Things Will Happen, Chapman also co-authored Content Rules with Ann Handley. He’s founded The Cleon Foundation and Passion Hit TV along with a digital marketing agency. He has worked with Coca-Cola, HBO, Warner Bros., American Eagle Outfitters and other companies to transition from traditional marketing to online and digital content marketing.

“We’re going to interview C.C., Oprah style, so we can really dig deep and learn about how he fuels so many projects, develops strategies for clients and uses storytelling and content to pave the way for revenues,” Falls explained. “The audience will participate, too, so everyone’s questions can be answered.”

Chapman can be found online at cc-chapman.com or on Twitter @cc_chapman.

Understanding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is fundamental to developing anything on the web and your ability to fit these pieces together allows you to immediately start building new products and ideas. With Node.js, you can leverage your skills even further.

In order to build complete, rich, dynamic web products, you also need to manage your database and web server (i.e. our back-end). In the past, this meant you needed to add an entirely new programming language (like PHP or Python) to your front-end toolkit. Now, you have an opportunity to simply use JavaScript to manage your entire technology stack (front-end and back-end). Here are just a few reasons why learning Node is such a great opportunity to add to your existing skills:

1. It’s JavaScript!

You’ll be amazed how powerful your JavaScript skills will become. No need for new “back-end” languages like Ruby to get stuff done. You already know JavaScript, so just focus on learning about web servers, back-end logic, and managing databases!
2. The open source community!

3. It’s cutting-edge technology!

Node’s growth curve is awesome. People are constantly finding new ways to use it and build exciting software. Big companies like Airbnb and LinkedIn are embracing it in production and it shows all the signs of having a bright future. Node’s asynchronous approach makes creating scalable web servers and implementing real time features, a breeze.
The bottom line is, Node is a great opportunity to leverage the skills you have to do more with what you already know. There are plenty of other server-side languages or frameworks that you could learn, but in terms of getting the most “bang for your buck” – Node is a no brainer, especially for front-end developers looking to learn back-end skills!

If that all sounds interesting, then you’re going to love NodeLingo’s Introduction to Node.js workshop on April 6th and 7th at Louisville’s iHub! It’s going to be hands-on and a lot of fun. By the end of the weekend, you will have built your very own real time Node application and will be well on your way to continuing your learning. Oh, NodeLingo has prizes and surprises for students too!

Some further details..

1. NodeLingo is a team of passionate developers, focused on teaching Node.js and JavaScript classes for beginner to advanced students. Their courses are hands-on and in-person. They focus on teaching practical skills to help students quickly and confidently implement their knowledge.
2. They can be found at NodeLingo.com

Please refer to the points above about why Node is awesome.

Recommended Resources for Learning JavaScript basics quickly:

A key chain with your dog’s name on it, a personalized iPhone cover, a strange little piece of jewelry. Now you can use 3D printing to make and customize a long list of fun and useful objects!

At this workshop, computers with kid simple software will be set up, there will be 3D trained folks roaming around and the machines will be printing morning through – well, late afternoon. And you can be amongst the first of your friends to have printed out your own “thing” on a 3D printer!

Join LDA and the wonderful folks at the LFPL to print out your own 3D masterpiece. FOR FREE. For Men and women and children of all ages!!

 Sign up here!

Come even if you haven’t registered — but registering guarantees you a pre-printed 3d toy – we will not tell you what it is, but a hint is that it is Kentucky’s State Bird.

Time: 10-4

Date: March 9th

Location: Louisville Free Public Library

301 York Street, Louisville KY 40203

The Louisville Digital Assoc. is putting on a tasty panel discussion next Wednesday.  Join Tim Koons-McGee of The Comfy Cow, Rachel Goldenberg of Estes PR, and Liz and Jesse Huot of Grind Food Truck on stage to answer questions about local social media marketing.

Sign up here for your free ticket.

Death of the Landing Tab, 3rd-party App Penalty, Engagement Drop – these strange terms have become the life of the poor social media marketer after Facebook’s IPO. What is a savvy business person to do? Come listen to four of Louisville’s most savvily delicious folks as they give us guidance and answer your questions.

Between Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and the CrowdFunding part of the Jobs Act,  crowdfunding is all the rage. But information is hard to sort through and experts are few and far away. LDA is riding to the rescue with a series of events to get you up to speed about how to succeed in this new world.

Join us on Dec 12th, from 5:30 -8 pm (EST) at the iHub (204 South Floyd Street, Louisville, KY – 40202).  The event is free, pizza and soft drinks are provided. There is a limited number of seats, but plenty of parking!

To register, click here.

We kick off with 15 minutes by national expert and Cincy native, Candace Klein of Bad Girls Ventures and SoMoLend. And then we will hear  from local entrepreneurs - Michelle Jones (Menu and Hours), Maggie Huber (This is Louisville), and Jon Huffman and Barbara Cullen (Armoured Car Theatre) about how they successfully raised start up funds on Kickstarter.

Questions we will answer:

• How much prep did you do?
• Where did your funders come from?
• How did they find you?
• Local?
• Topic investors?
• Best resources you found?
• Raising money again?
• Willing to help?

After this panel LDA and partners will be following-up with:

1) JFCS Navigate Enterprise Center classes in -

• The offer/pitch
• Social Media prep
• Promoting after launch
• What sells a project — putting in the Bells & Whistle

2) A list of crowdfunding resources, and

3)  A Forge co-sponsored event in January 2013- that will focus on the new rules of investing crowdfunding. We will draw in experts and platforms that will help Louisville area entrepreneurs fully (and legally) embrace this new tool!

As always thanks to Insider Louisville for being our media sponsor.

Related articles

• 2012: The Year of Crowdfunding. What Makes a Successful Campaign?
• A New Era of Crowdfunding?
• A GigaOM guide to Kickstarter wannabes
• Crowdfunding firms boost startups
• Crowdfunding is Hard. And also Awesome.

As any marketer, planner, technologist or teenager knows, the Big Wave of Data can appear to be a tsunami that will drown all those in its path.

Data Visualization (properly done) can help the human mind understand and use all that data – allowing us to surf those powerful waves.

There are few better at reading the information waves than Wes Grubbs. Wes started out in international economics with an emphasis on statistics and computing in the mid-90′s. Since then, he’s traversed the paths of photography, computer programming, a masters degree in Information Systems, more programming and he now runs Pitch Interactive., a Berkeley-based data visualization studio that builds data visualizations for WIRED, Google, Esquire and many more clients across many industries.

An Arkansas native and world citizen, Wes will give us a global and local view of the world of data visualization touching on stories of it’s use from Politics (what could be more fitting in November) to Science.

Wes will take us far from simple infographics and into how the mind sees and processes data. With projects on display at the MoMA in New York, and in Scientific American and ESPN magazine (you can use big data in Baseball!) you will leave with a better understanding of the next phase of communication and data.

Come join us at the Interactive Media Lab, 124 N. First Street, 40202, on November 7th, from 5:30-7:30pm to get a first-hand look at the opportunities of the future. Admission is free, and the soft drinks and pizza are on our good friends at Insider Louisville.

Register here.

The Louisville Digital Association and the local chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators are ready to wow Louisville again with an awesome day of great learning at our annual Emerging Media Summit. This year’s event will be on Thursday, Oct. 4, from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Louisville.

Shannon Paul, Vice-President of Social Media for Fifth Third Bank and former social media lead for Blue-Cross Blue-Shield of Michigan, headlines an incredible lineup of speakers and practitioners ready to share their wisdom, experiences and case studies with Louisville. Other presenters include measurement and analytics expert Nichole Kelly of Social Media Explorer’s SME Digital agency; Facebook marketing expert and BlitzLocal CEO Dennis YU; Patti Hobbs from UPS Airlines who will discuss crisis communications in a social world and Elasticity’s Aaron Perlut, originator of the American Mustache Institute, who will show us how to make our communications outstanding.

The day will also include talks from Alison Groves from Raven Tools focused on integrating social media, public relations and SEO to produce strong storytelling online; Vest Advertising’s Cody Vest will present ideas on generating “Return on Awesome”; RedEApp’s Jonathan Erwin will discuss organization collaboration and communication in a digitally connected world and Ben Loetz of Verizon Wireless will help us understand the emerging technologies and trends that marketing and communications professionals need to be watching as the digital world continues to evolve.

The day will be capped off by a workshop session with segments led by Social Media Explorer’s Jason Falls (Optimizing Your LinkedIn Efforts); Bandy Carrol Hellige’s Nick Huhn (Getting More out of Google Analytics), Raven Tool’s Groves (Managing Social Media Streams and Workflow) and Brown-Forman (Understanding Facebook’s New Advertising Opportunities).

The event is a fund-raiser for LDA and IABC’s local chapter. The cost is $159.00 for LDA/IABC members (if you’re on our email list as of Aug. 15, you’re a member), $209 for non-members and for those interested in also purchasing an annual membership for IABC, you can attend and join for $399.00 (A significant savings off the cost of both). There is also a student price for the event of $79.

Register for the event today and join us on Oct. 4.

The cast and crew of Apocalypse Brew-Works are the host/sponsor/sugar daddies for the latest round of Startup Drinks this Wednesday, Aug. 22. And, as Jeff Fedor points out, “if that’s not reason enough, a clever Google Plugin just informed me it’s Ray Bradbury’s birthday too.” (there’s a Dandelion Wine joke in there, somewhere.)

If you’re part of, interested in, or even marginally aware of the Louisville startup scene, you can hob-nob with your entrepreneurially obsessed peers over adult libations in a little more than 48 hours. Be there or be a right orthogonal quadrilateral.

Where: Apocalypse Brew-Works, 1612 Mellwood Ave, Louisville, KY, 40206
When: Wednesday, August 22nd at 5PM – ?
RSVP:  http://planca.st/g0Ka

Infographics — those often clever and almost always exceedingly vertical visual representations of statistics — have gotten a bad name of late. Most of the backlash has been due to the rampant overuse, misuse and baltant abuse of infographics as marketing tools. That doesn’t mean you should stop using infographics in your marketing; you should stop using them badly — and the Louisville Digital Association is going to show you how.

On Aug. 29, the LDA will present How and Why to Use Infographics as Your Secret Marketing Weapons. Louisville’s own Brian Wallace of NowSourcing will lead the discussion at Interactive Media Lab, 124 N. First Street, from 5:30 – 7:30pm on Wednesday, Aug. 29.

Brian’s presentation will cover:

• Why infographics, and not other content?
• What is the ROI of an infographic?
• How to make the business case for an infographic?
• What makes an infographic successful?
• How much, and how long, should it take to produce an infographic?

And, as an added bonus, a non-zero statistically significant percentage of the attendees will receive copies of The Power of Infographics by Mark Smiciklas. It’s not just education and networking, it’s a nerd-book lottery. We’d explain your exact odds of winning but, frankly, we’re waiting until after the lecture so we can display the probabilities in a nice, comprehensibly catchy infographic.

As with virtually all LDA events, admission is free but seating is limited. You can reserve your spot here.