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Social Dev Camp, that is.

On August 13-15, Jordan Ho and Greg Baugues attended the third annual Social Dev Camp Chicago, an “unconference” for social application and platform developers that explores the emerging trends in new media. This year’s guest speakers included Ben Huh, the CEO of the web’s largest comedy network, Icanhazcheezburger.com; Michael Slaby, the former CTO of President Obama’s election campaign; and Andrew Mason, the CEO of Groupon, which graced the August cover of Forbes as the fastest growing company of all time.

The biggest takeaways from the conference were ideological rather than technical. “Human nature admires complexity and rewards simplicity,” Huh said, advising that people make their applications as simple as possible and not “over engineer.” Slaby spoke of the importance of establishing a clear goal and always working toward it (in his case, getting Obama elected). Technology should never be employed for its own sake, but only where it supports that greater objective.

Slaby also trotted out some interesting web stats from the campaign that demonstrate how social media is changing politics. Of the $700 million the Obama camp raised, $500 million came from online donations. Though for a time Slaby was the only staffer who knew how to build websites, at its height the campaign employed more than 100 paid workers dedicated to social media efforts, as compared to Senator McCain’s 10. Slaby himself worked a total of 603 days, with only five days off.

All in all, it was a great weekend. We learned a ton, met cool people, and are already looking forward to next year’s event. Perhaps most significantly, it renewed some of our faith in Chicago’s tech conferences.

Check out some of the other upcoming conferences we’ll be attending:

Tech in the Middle: This one-day event focuses on expanding mobile application and cloud computing knowledge in the Midwest.
September 11 / Illinois Institute of Technology

Chicago COUNTS, a conference uniting non-profits and technology.  Greg will be doing a repeat performance of “How to Not Get Screwed” which he has given at the ICNC and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.
September 12 /Illinois Institute of Technology

midVentures Launch: A two-day conference for entrepreneurs, VCs, and media that showcases new and innovative start-ups and applications in the technology space. September 27-28 / UIC Forum

Here are my notes on Brad Flora’s (@bradflora) Social Dev Camp presentation on his experiences with Windy Citizen. He’s a great public speaker: funny, articulate and he’s got a great story to tell.

Windy Citizen

- Effectively Digg For Chicago
- founded in 2008
- current iteration is not the first idea we had
- it’s like “idea number 47″
- doesn’t have an engineering background
- spent no money on advertising
- did not have help from the local media for the first 1.5 years
- if you have an idea, take comfort that there are people who have done this without a strict technical background
(more…)

My favorite talk from Social Dev Camp Chicago was Michael Slaby (@michaelslaby), former CTO of the Obama campaign.

The full notes follow, but some of my favorite tidbits are:

• Obama had over 100 paid staffers doing new media – McCain campaign had 10
• $500M of the $700M raised by the campaign was raised online
• Until they announced Palin, we thought we could win alaska.
• In the first six months of the campaign, Michael was the only guy who knew HTML/Javascript
• Worked 600ish days – had five days off (?!)

Harper Reed (@harper) describes himself as “probably one of the coolest guys ever.”

At Social Dev Camp Chicago, Harper gave probably one of the coolest talks on cloud computing constraints I’ve ever heard. Granted, it was the only such talk I’ve ever heard, but it was pretty cool nonetheless.

The 10,000 foot view of his talk is:
1 – Cloud computing platforms have constraints
2 – Embracing constraints will make you a better programmer

(more…)

Killer Social Apps: Five Trends Shaping the Future of Brand Engagement

@admaven
@chrispautsch
@pekpongpaet

Goal of this Presentation
- Identify Trends
- trend is a fad comes into popularity and then it goes away
- help us identify unment needs of the marketplace
(more…)

Last week we presented at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce’s Tech Wednesday seminar. The goal of the seminar was to arm members with basic concepts and a vocabulary to help them select a web vendor and successfully navigate the creation of a new website.

The original title was Ensuring Successful Web Projects, but that was too dry.  So we went with How To Not Get Screwed instead.

As promised, here are links to some of the sites and products we talked about:

• Sortfolio – 37 Signals’ web developer directory.  Find vendors by city and budget.
• Google Anayltics – The de facto standard for measuring traffic to your website.
• KISSMetrics – Web Analytics that “Keep it simple, stupid.”  For people who don’t want all the extra noise that comes with Google Analytics.
• Inbound Marketing by Dharmesh Shah – a quick, informative read on how to use blogs, search engines and social media to bring your clients to you.
• Inbound Marketing University – Shah’s site with dozens of hours of free online training.
• Dreamhost – Use this instead of GoDaddy for hosting.
• WordPress – A great content management system.  If you use Dreamhost, you can get Word Press setup in about two minutes.
• Kodak Zi8 - It’s like the Flip, but has an external mic jack.  Great for quickly creating hi-def video content.
• Gary Vaynerchuck – One of the most audible voices on building online brands.  He also wrote a New York Time’s best seller called Crush It.

This is a repost of an article we were asked to write for the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce weekly newsletter.

We’ve all heard the buzz. We all know the two words that strike fear and uncertainty in the hearts of companies everywhere: “social media.” But these new online community outlets needn’t scare you if you know how to utilize them properly. Here are two strategies for making social media work for you.

1. Converse with your customers.

Have you seen the Old Spice commercial featuring “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”? If not, go watch it.

All set? Now, imagine that The Man Your Man Could Smell Like sent you a personalized message. Think you’d tell your friends about it?

Three weeks ago, Old Spice launched one of the most effective social marketing campaigns ever run by a national brand. They told people to submit questions on Twitter and other online communities, and promised that their charismatic spokesman would answer them.

What followed was a conversation with Old Spice’s potential customers: People asked all manner of questions, and the Man Your Man Could Smell Like answered them via personalized videos on YouTube.

Over three days, Old Spice produced more than 180 videos starring spokesman Isaiah Mustafa. Every video was addressed to an individual, and each was less than 60 seconds in length.

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Welcome to the new TableXI.com!

It’s been a long time in the making, but we’ve finally launched our shiny new web site. Come in and stay awhile.

While we’ll be implementing further updates in the coming weeks, we’re excited about our cleaner, simpler, more user-friendly design. Just as we do with our clients, we asked ourselves to identify the most pertinent information and filtered out the rest, leading to a website that’s streamlined but still informative.

We hope you find it easy to use, easy to navigate, and easy on the eyes. Drop us a line and tell us what you think!

In March, Medill Reports wrote a piece about us, Tech consulting firm does well by feeding well. The article profiles who we are and some of our more atypical but positive practices, like our $5 daily time sheet bonuses and in-house lunches. There’s even a video of Ellen preparing one of our favorite meals.

Woody Torrez is joining us as a software developer, and we’re excited to set him loose on our projects with Fairbanks, among other ventures. Before joining Table XI, Woody served as Lead Developer for CCIM Institute, where he created online tools to help the organization provide commercial real estate education and services to its members. He hails from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a BS in computer engineering. When not programming in PERL, PHP, and JAVA, Woody wanders forest preserves, children’s museums, aquariums, and zoos with his wife, son, and daughter.

Patrick Stein will be coming aboard as a software developer to assist on several client projects. While working toward a degree in computer science at the University of Toronto, Patrick has developed custom software for investment firms and Web sites for the Fio Corporation, a health technology firm. In his downtime he plays guitar and soccer, and can often be found tinkering with electronics.

Kathryn Achenbach is entering the fold as a part-time copywriter. Kat is flexing her fingers in anticipation of Table XI’s growing writing needs, from its upcoming Web site redesign to copy for client sites to the very newsletter you’re reading now. In fourth grade Kat discovered a peculiar love for diagramming sentences and never looked back, eventually graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in English and art history. In addition to her copywriting gigs, she has ghostwritten children’s fiction and even penned a cartoon or two.