About two weekends ago I attended Indianapolis Startup Weekend, and never regretted it.

The event was a great opportunity to team up with amazing professionals I’ve never met before, to create together a web/mobile app startup in only two days.

40 out of about 100 attendees have pitched an idea the first evening on Friday April 8. Then voting has filtered them, and 13 startup ideas remained on the battleground, to compete on finalizing the project’s first phase by mid-day Sunday – only one day and a half to go.

A new startup takes off

I’ve chosen to join a team formed around Josh Towns’ idea for a so-called “civic network”. I was the only software engineer in that team.

No one in the team had any idea what the app will exactly look like at the end of the weekend.

So we started brainstorming ideas, sketches, UIs (user interfaces) – solutions. By the end of Friday, our app has been planned to be a feed filter for Twitter posts made by local officials and government.

Saturday morning we all knew what to do next.

Not.

We actually ended up with more talks, thoughts and research. New sketches and plans have been layed out, until one moment when we decided to recap what we thought our app would do.

And that recap session switched the initial ideas to a very different (but useful and challenging) path.

That’s settled: CivicResound

Our app will now be a civic social network, an online town hall, allowing local community’s people to publish their concerns about local issues and things happening in their district or neighborhood. Local officials and government would also be involved in the conversation and website’s interactivity.

Cool!

After that detail has been established, you can imagine what happened next. We only had about 24 hours left to actually create that app thing.

So suddenly, business development guys started to do their job, the developer started to develop the user interface and all the techical aspects, marketing guys started to do their marketing, PR guys started to work on press releases and future communications.

In a few hours, by the end of Saturday, the app had a user interface, a web template, was capable of authenticating users using their Facebook accounts, was open to receive new local community concerns and improvement ideas from local citizens, visitors could have voted thumbs-up or down on each community idea, and also accepted comments using a Facebook plugin, while the website’s sidebar communicated the new company’s mission, listed the reasons we created that app for via a Twitter widget that displayed live search results of what people tweeted about their community concerns, city council, local issues and more.

Sunday morning we continued with a few more app changes, then full-throttle with the initial marketing.

Then we launched it.

A few hours before it was supposed to be pitched in front of the judges, our app was fully functioning on the web. And the very next day it had an honorable mention on CBS Money Watch Finance, along with two other notable startups launched at Indianapolis Startup Weekend 2011. There were many other mentions everywhere on the web, we’ve captured the tweets in the @CivicResound’s Favorites list.

An amazing experience

Thanks to all the people I have interacted with during that event, it was a great experience that I will probably repeat in the near future. Lorraine Ball, thanks for putting all this together, Douglas Karr thanks your support from a judge perspective, Josh Towns thanks for your idea and enthusiasm, Molly Butters thanks for your professional help, Geoff Lewis thanks for the chat at the Irish Pub, Kate Vanneman thanks for the energized marketing, Jen Riley thanks for the powerful PR, Brian Mack thanks for the thorough research.

Now go post new, influential community ideas:

www.CivicResound.com – then tell us what you think.

Early stage sketches

Still designing the interface

Sneak-peek preview of 'the something'

Short break, chatting with the founder of Formspring.me

Outdoors for a while, playing games and clearing our minds

Back to fun

This is it - final pitch

The judging committee

There is a handful of local businesses that have created a Facebook User profile instead of a Facebook Page in the past.

The FB Pages’ structure has changed drastically since a few months and years ago, so right now there is no reason for your company, non-profit, music band or organization etc. to stick with the FB User profile.

There is an official way now to migrate your company’s old FB User profile to a proper FB Page.

I will only give you the link to the page where you may start the FB account migration, I am not really aware of what other steps are in this process:

• http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?migrate

If you feel uncomfortable with the migration process, you may ask us for assistance.

Related stories:

1. The New Facebook Profile
2. A Developer’s View On New Facebook Pages
3. A Short URL For Your New Facebook Page
4. The Rules of Business Promotions on Facebook

I am only using two folders for all my emails: Inbox (for required todos/replies) and Archive (for everything else important, yet searchable anytime).

Never missed nor delayed a required reply.

I am using this technique with two different email systems: Gmail (that offers Labels feature) and Lotus Notes (that has only folders).

What’s the difference between a Label and a Folder, for emails?

Simply put, an email can have many Labels attached (in Gmail), but it can only be moved/copied to a single Folder (in other email clients).

Some rules that I apply to my “Relaxed Inbox”

The verb “archive” in the rules below means either (1) Click “Archive” button in Gmail or (2) “Move To Archive Folder” in other email clients. Both actions remove the message from the Inbox.

• If the message requires a reply, I keep it in my Inbox.
• If a message has been replied to and does not require my attention for now, I archive it.
• If the message requires an urgent action that can not actually be done while reading it, I keep it in my Inbox.
• If I think the message will be needed some time in the future, but it doesn’t require a reply now, I archive it.
• Trash emails go to Trash. Spam, some newsletters, subscription confirmations, unneeded messages go to Trash as well.

This way I end up with none or just a few emails left for the day in my Inbox. In Gmail, everything gets labeled before archiving. Should I need to review an old conversation, I will simply search for the right keywords in the archive. (photo)

How do you read your email?

We’ve all noticed quite a few Lafayette, Indiana-based businesses and media companies that have created a Facebook User Profile for their organizations, instead of starting a more focused Facebook Page.

This obviously wasn’t the right choice, and now with the new Facebook Pages launch, those accounts do not make any sense and I’ll explain why.

The New Facebook Pages Are Extensions Of The User Profile Model

In many ways, the new Facebook Pages inherit most of the regular users’ behavior. If we look closer we can see a lot of similarities.

Without being too techy, under the hood the new Pages are actually extensions of the user’s profiles, they are built on the same skeleton, they inherit most of the user profile’s features. Very similar to Twitter Lists implementation.

So people may now treat the new Pages like regular FB user profiles we all are already used to. Except most Pages are public. Some users too.

But most importantly, there is now absolutely no reason to maintain a Facebook presence for an organization under a regular User account, instead businesses and organizations that are wrongfully doing this right now should transfer to the new Facebook Pages system.

The New Facebook Pages’ Interactivity

With the new design it recently launched, Facebook wants to enable more interactivity between Pages, but still to avoid spamming actions.

While the regular users already need to Like a Page before they can join the conversation there, the same mechanism is now applied for the new Facebook Pages.

“Use Facebook As MyPageName”

I really hope the multi-account feature will be improved soon, especially when it comes to posting statuses or comments. A nice drop-down box for the avatar near the status update’s textarea could allow a user to choose the account they would like to use to update or comment from.

The New Facebook Pages Notification System

It doesn’t seem that the notifications for the new Facebook Pages work unless we switch to “Use Facebook as MyPageName”. Tell me what I do wrong, I might have missed something here.

I am still going to use NutshellMail (similar to Hyper Alerts) since it offers LinkedIn and Twitter notifications besides Facebook Pages and Facebook Lists’ updates, and all the alerts are sent via email regularly.

Have you switched to the new Facebook Pages? Share us what you think.

Related stories:

1. The New Facebook Pages Delayed
2. Migrate your company’s FB User profile to a proper FB Page

One of our own main goals when promoting things on our Facebook Page is to get new referrals from the current fans. Re-engaging them in the conversation is another goal.

It’s good to know, though, that there are strict rules being enforced for your marketing campaigns and promotions on Facebook. You may find them listed on the official page, look for the link at the end of this article.

There are many creative ways to initiate a marketing campaign on Facebook, here are some of them that we enjoyed crafting, launching and monitoring for our clients during the past years:

• Welcome Page (or Landing Page). A good welcome page nicely presenting your products and services is a great way to attract people to Like your page.
• Welcome Page with hidden campaign information until after people click Like. The campaign’s details or a contest’s additional information may be hidden in your Welcome Page until after people click Like. It’s an automated process and is a common-sense way to have them follow your Facebook Page’s updates while winning something useful for them.
• Custom forms, widgets, sections and Facebook automation integrations. Most of the forms and interactivity features Facebook is using on their own standard pages may be integrated into your Facebook Page, to add more creativity and interactivity with your fans. Commenting systems for guests visiting your Welcome Page, displaying a portfolio of your Facebook Page’s photo albums, listing your Facebook Page’s wall entries on the Welcome Page along with short descriptions of your business, products or services are just few of the ways you may add more sense for people becoming your fans and following your status updates.
• Integrations with off-line campaigns. If you ask us, this is an absolute requirement for a successful marketing campaign. You may connect your off-line campaign materials with your Facebook Page’s fans in many creative ways, to ensure the best impact of your marketing efforts.
• Merge your main website or blog’s content with your Facebook Page. Interconnect your online channels to provide additional exposure to your content you carefully crafted for your customers.
• Add video content to your campaign. No need for more words. Videos always work in a marketing campaign.
• Vertical tall banner. This approach might soon be made less attractive by the new Facebook Page style’s introduction where all the tabs will be moved under the profile avatar (just like on the user’s new page), but it still is a method to add more graphical information about what exactly your Facebook Page is about.
• Use QR codes to expand your communications. Print them on all your off-line materials to drive traffic to any of your online content for your marketing campaign, either your videos, your Facebook Page, your Foursquare venue location page, your Twitter account, you name them. More and more people are using QR codes mobile scanners these days, and they will soon become a very popular and handy tool for both marketers and customers looking for additional multimedia and interactive information about a promotion.

There are more other methods we have applied to our client’s custom online marketing campaigns and we enjoyed helping them broaden their vision in regards to additional options for their successful marketing campaign.

Proven technical skills, mixed with suggestions coming from our strategic partners specialized in online marketing or advanced graphics, combined with a good approach of measuring a campaign’s impact, may result in a great outcome for your advertising campaign.

Yes, you may attempt to do them yourself (make sure you take every aspect into consideration, and definitely don’t hurt your brand) or ask us about more details on how to craft custom marketing campaigns.

Resource: the official page for Facebook promotions guidelines.

Related stories:

1. How To Target Business’ Updates on Facebook Wall

If you are reading this note, you’ve probably attended a business networking event in Lafayette, Indiana at least one time.

Many of the friends and current clients attended the tweetups and the technology events, or the workshops and seminars I helped organize or have presented at over the past years.

But there are a lot of other local events that help small business owners get together and exchange knowledge and thoughts.

For instance, I’ve recently joined the Tippy Connect group, a local organization for young professionals, that functions under the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce. I’ve attended a few events and have already made new friends and conversation partners. I’ve also met people I used to talk online with, but have never met in person.

Today February 3rd 5pm, the Networking After Hours event will take place at IS Photographic downtown (505 Main St, Lafayette, IN 47901 – photo). The event will support the local Hanna Community Center, donations are appreciated at the door. RSVP on Facebook.

Before attending any of these events, you may want read this article to see if there is anything you can adjust to get the most out of these business networking sessions (via).

I hope to meet you at the After Hours today. And tell us in the comments below what your main goals are while attending these local networking events.

Google Places with Hotpot has been released today as an iPhone app.

We have tested it, but found out that there are a couple of main features still to be implemented for the app to be actually useful:

• The app should display more detailed information for each business.
• The active offers and coupons are not listed anywhere within the app.

On the other hand, the most important features have been implemented seemleasly into this new app:

• Basic information like the physical address and distance from the user.
• Maps and directions to listed businesses
• Rating and reviews system.
• Contact business by phone.

Have you got your Lafayette, Indiana-based business on Google Hotpot yet? We do have it listed there, check out Nehloo Interactive on Google Places, along with our two active coupons.

If you have been in contact with us lately, participated to our seminars and workshops, ever been our client or partner, or have met us at local technology events like the local Tweetup, Lafayette Twestival, Envolve or TippyConnect meetups etc., please rate and review our venture Nehloo Interactive on Google Places – we’d love to hear from you!

Related stories:

1. Add Your Social Links To Google Places
2. Google Search Results Website Preview

Remember our seminar at the Small Business Development Center at Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Indiana past October? You may view our presentation on your iPad now, Prezi has released today an application that allows users to display slick animated presentations on this device – check out this video.

Have you used Prezi? If not, you should. There is a free account you may try, then eventually move with other plans if you will really need to.

And let us know if you need help with using it for your business presentations, we can surely provide you with useful tricks to make the most out your Prezi experience.

Along with the web development and website audit services, we also enjoy working on creating new web and mobile startups. They usually are creative ideas that we believe are useful to be implemented to help the world.

One of our latest startup ventures is Doocide, a web application that aims to solve the decision-making troubles many of us deal with every day.

Whether you need to compare products, choose a job or a service, diagnose something or make a decision on a specific topic that interests you, Doocide helps by offering an approach that will make more sense out of your final decision, so you can feel confortable with your choice.

We’ve made plans for this app back in 2006, but started developing it only since 2009. It was in Private Beta until recently when we open it to public for 4 days, during CES event in Las Vegas, to eventually help you compare the new electronic gadgets and devices that are introduced there, with similar devices you currently own.

Try Doocide

Try it for yourself at www.doocide.com and send us some feedback, it should only take minutes. Note that the app is still in early stage, so bug reports are welcome. And share it with your friends.

Related stories:

1. 5 Things to Look For When Hiring a Web Developer in Lafayette

Happy New Year!

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