Uptown/Lyn Lake : Innovation + Job News

Since 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has ensured equal opportunity for Americans who suffer from physical and mental conditions that limit their means. While wheelchair ramps, closed captioning and wider doorways have become commonplace, the digital realm still lags behind.

Accessible360, founded by entrepreneur Mark Lacek, seeks to fix that oversight. The company’s purpose is to make websites and digital apps fully functional for those impaired by blindness, deafness, or physical or cognitive restrictions. The company was launched this April and began promotion last month, just in time to help businesses comply with a rollout of new regulations from the Department of Justice in 2018.

Technology has changed since 1990 when the ADA was passed, and the Department of Justice announced last year that it the law applies both to physical buildings as well as digital areas. Accessible360 is here to make companies accessible today.
Many screen readers don’t recognize 100 percent of a website, Lacek says. When a blind user can’t access an offer, it’s discrimination and a violation of the law. Some compliance issues are obvious, like font sizes that affect the visually impaired but, he says, most are subtle. “There are things you would never recognize as a sighted person. Technology just doesn’t pick them up.”

Checkout screens are a notorious problem for blind users, he explains, which alienates disabled users and decreases potential sales. Studies show that disabled Americans spend more time online than their non-disabled counterparts, so it’s essential for companies to adapt to their needs. “Up to 85 percent of websites are not compliant based on what the current ADA guidelines are,” says Lacek.

“It’s somewhat Y2Kish,” says Lacek, explaining digital ADA compliance. “There’s this pending thing on the horizon. The difference is everyone knew about Y2K and people are just becoming aware of this issue.”

Accessible360 offers three core services. Lacek’s team of 10— led by accessibility engineer Aaron Cannon (who is blind)—will provide an audit of a website to determine issues and potential fixes for a client. Other services are remediation (fixing the issues) and monitoring. Monitoring, he explains, works like a home security system or credit card alert program, where Accessible360 makes sure that any new content uploaded to a website remains in compliance even after the first two phases are complete.

“The biggest challenge is really awareness and education of the general public,” says Lacek. “A lot of people don’t realize that the ADA regulations applies to the internet and their sites need to be accessible.” The company was inspired by the number of lawsuits being filed about website accessibility.

So far, Lacek’s team has worked with retail, financial services, travel, health and medical, and educational websites. It’s important to be compliant, he says, but it’s more important to make the world a better place.

“No one wants to be that company or that website that’s not empathetic to all of society,” he adds, “including the disabled.”
 

Even if you’ve never been to the Big Apple, you’ve probably heard of Humans of New York — the wildly successful, ongoing photo essay that’s touched more than 20 countries and earned millions of social shares.
 
New York City has more than eight million inhabitants from all over the world, but it’s not the only place with a multitude of human-scale stories worth sharing. MSP has its very own analog: Humans of Minneapolis, Minneapolis-based photographer Stephanie Glaros’ often poignant look at the joys, sorrows and oddities of life in the urban North.
 
Glaros started Humans of Minneapolis as an occasional tumblr blog — a useful vehicle for her ample interactive talents. She’s since added a Facebook page and Instagram feed to bring her subjects to a wider audience. Last month, the Minneapolis Parks Foundation announced that Glaros would conduct a “summer-long portrait series profiling visitors to Minneapolis neighborhood parks,” showcased in Humans of Minneapolis’ digital ecosystem and the Park Foundation’s own social properties.
 
According to the Parks Foundation, Glaros will profile 15 park visitors in all. The portrait series aims to draw attention to Minneapolis’ 160-plus parks, which (per the Parks Foundation) attracted more than six million visitors last year. Shortly after the portrait series’ announcement, the Trust for Public Land announced that Minneapolis had once again earned the top spot in its closely watched urban U.S. park system rankings, continuing a dominant run that dates back to the early 2010s.
 
“Stephanie’s series will help us begin to tell the stories of the people who use our parks every day and show the multitude of ways people use and love our Minneapolis parks,” the Parks Foundation said in a release.
 
Some of the stories Glaros captures on the Humans of Minneapolis blog are challenging, to put it mildly. Interviews conducted immediately following Prince’s death were heartbreaking. More recently, she spoke with a young man whose ex-girlfriend’s brother had died violently the previous week; in the interview, he talked openly about his own mortality and agonized about carrying a firearm for protection.
 
It’s not yet clear whether Glaros’ park stories will hew toward the weighty, or whether they’ll focus on the lighter side of summer in MSP. No matter what the next few months bring, Glaros is excited to explore her beloved, snow-less home city and forge new connections with her fellow Minneapolitans.
 
“People are reserved here and they don’t want attention, so it can be a bit of a challenge to draw people out,” she told the Star Tribune in April. “I look at that as a challenge to get real and get outside of our shells and make a connection…[t]here’s something magical about connecting with a complete stranger.”
 
 

In the groan-inducing 2000 film What Women Want, Mel Gibson’s misogynistic executive used an acquired ability to hear women’s thoughts to amusing, mostly self-serving ends.
 
Mary Van Note and Beth Perro-Jarvis, MSP-based Ginger Consulting’s co-founders, can’t read minds. But thanks to decades of marketing experience and a comprehensive, highly authoritative survey for female householders, they’ve got a pretty good handle on what drives women consumers in MSP and across the country — certainly more so than Gibson’s fictional mind-reading cad.
 
Van Note and Perro-Jarvis released their sixth annual “What Women Want” survey in April. The survey touched on of-the-moment health trends, like juicing and the Paleo diet, plus political issues, personal finance, household division of labor, popular culture and more.
 
Some of the headline findings were surprising. For instance, nearly two-thirds of survey respondents believe the “latest diet and nutrition trends” — i.e., Paleo — are “just fads.” A similar proportion claimed to be fine with making dinner at home every night. And more than a quarter believed that Hillary Clinton and any other female Presidential candidates in the 2016 election cycle will be judged more harshly than male candidates — in other words, that voters hold prospective women leaders to a higher standard.
 
The “What Women Want” survey processes responses from Ginger Consulting’s Alpha Panel, a 350-strong cohort of hand-selected women, most of them affluent and well-educated.
 
“The Alpha Panel isn’t a random sample,” explains Van Note. “We have longstanding relationships with most of these women and value their input in a way that goes beyond many other consumer surveys.” Ginger’s partners are particularly dismissive of teen surveys, which are highly sought after by marketers due to teens’ notoriously fickle tastes — but can be unreliable to the point of uselessness precisely because teens are so fickle.
 
By contrast, “our ‘alpha-females’ are a representative sample of America’s largest consumer group — the powerhouse that buys and sells 85 percent of all products bought and sold in the U.S.,” says Perro-Jarvis, referring to the single and family-attached women who make the vast majority of purchasing decisions, often on behalf of domestic partners and dependents. “Naturally, they have a lot to say about the marketplace, and life in it.”
 
In many ways, Perro-Jarvis and Van Note epitomize their Alpha Panel. Whip-smart, both left prominent positions at Fallon (the two were team members for some time, in fact) to work on their own terms and achieve that elusive work-life balance.
 
“The world of marketing and advertising is incredibly stressful and not particularly conducive to raising a family,” says Van Note. “At the same time, we were having these back-of-the-napkin conversations about what it would look like if we went into business together.”
 
During those conversations, the pair decided to focus more on big-picture, data-driven strategy instead of the full-service marketing work typically done by larger agencies.
 
“We don’t have the resources to manage the teams we’d need to execute client campaigns,” explains Perro-Jarvis. “We’ve found a niche as ‘strategy outsourcing’ specialists who consult on high-level tactics, custom research, ideation and brand strategy.”
 
“We’re basically strategic brains for hire,” she adds.
 
Now that they’re masters of their own destiny, Van Note and Perro-Jarvis are reaping the rewards. “We take calls in line at Target, work out of home offices and structure our workdays around other obligations,” says Perro-Jarvis.
 
“Who wants an office anyway?” she laughs. “It’s just another place to clean up.”
 

A while back, as Prodality co-founder Parag Shah scanned a credit card statement, he noticed a restaurant charge that seemed suspiciously high. Though he couldn’t remember the bill’s exact amount, he recalled the meal well enough to know he’d been overcharged. But Shah couldn’t find his receipt, and thus couldn’t confront the restaurant about the mistake.
 
“I hate paper, so I probably just threw the receipt out after signing,” says Shah. “But the experience made me ask why I didn’t have the option to receive my receipt by email and search through an archive of all my purchases.” Such an archive would also help with returns that required a receipt, he reasoned.
 
Shah set about developing the searchable receipt database that would become PurchaseBox. He soon saw the value in including promo emails in the concept: “The average person gets way too many promotional messages to keep track of, even with email systems like Gmail [which collects promo emails in a separate inbox],” explains Shah. “Most people just delete them as they come in, even if there’s a chance that they’d come in handy at a later time.”
 
By organizing retailer-specific promotional emails in a searchable database, PurchaseBox makes it easier for consumers to call up and use coupons while shopping online or in-store. Each PurchaseBox user gets an @purchasebox.com email account to which retailers can send digital offers and receipts. (Users can also photograph and upload paper receipts to their accounts, though that’s likely to become less common as more retailers switch to digital receipts.)
 
PurchaseBox exemplifies the customer-first approach to big-picture technology solutions of its parent company, Prodality. From its office near Uptown, Prodality is honing a unique business-building approach that could have a big impact on MSP’s burgeoning startup economy.
 
Shah, who serves as founder and chief executive, runs Prodality with business partner Whitney Johnson, who serves as director of marketing and oversees the company’s day-to-day operations. According to Johnson, Prodality is a “mix between a startup incubator and a capital investment firm.” Prodality turns ideas into new subsidiaries, taking an equity stake in every concept that makes it past the idea stage.
 
To get each new business off the ground, Prodality’s core team offers “labor support” during the startup phase, says Johnson, then builds “specific teams around each company as they continue to grow.” Prodality's startups are structured as separate legal entities, not departments of Prodality itself.
 
Prodality focuses on “big ideas” that can potentially achieve seven- or eight-figure valuations within three to five years, Shah says. “Before launching a new idea, we ask ourselves, is it a large enough opportunity?” he explains. “If the answer is ‘no,’ we don’t pursue it.”
 
Prodality’s ideas generally focus on business and consumer needs, depending on the company. Its most successful subsidiary to date, BookBottles, is an event management platform that caters to nightclub and entertainment venue owners. Regardless of target audience, Prodality’s startups must be cost-effective and “bootstrappable,” backed by software systems — either web or mobile — capable of being rolled out within weeks.
 
“One of the biggest advantages of our model is that it’s scalable,” says Shah. “We’ve put together a framework for providing the seed funding and labor to develop apps and other necessary technologies really quickly.”
 
Prodality’s model is attractive to local and national tech investors, who have participated in multiple funding rounds for the firm’s most successful startups. The ultimate goal of any Prodality backed startup, says Shah, is a full exit: the sale of Prodality’s stake to another firm or investment group. Prodality reinvests the proceeds of these sales into new ideas, some of which — hopefully — eventually make it through the same cycle.
 
As for PurchaseBox, it’s still early days. The app remains invite-only as the team works on functionality enhancements and tests new features, which Johnson says are critical to PurchaseBox’s eventual success. Current users tend to be tech-savvy “early adopters,” she says. “We count on experienced technology users to evangelize the product for us, and we always welcome feedback that helps us focus our development efforts.”
 
“The goal is to make PurchaseBox as user-friendly, seamless and convenient as possible,” Johnson adds. “Those attributes are what will ultimately drive adoption.”
 
According to Shah and Johnson, PurchaseBox is planning a big push — aided, again, by its early users — to put the app in front of retailers in MSP and beyond. “Our goal is to build a base of at least one million users” in the near term, says Shah. “Hitting that target will create a compelling value proposition for merchants and encourage adoption.”
 
Though one million users sounds like an ambitious target for an app that’s still technically in beta mode, Shah and Johnson clearly believe in PurchaseBox’s potential. And they’re fresh off a big visibility boost: PurchaseBox was one of a few hundred startups (out of 15,000 applicants) to appear at this year’s Collision, an annual tech expo held in Las Vegas in early May.
 

 
A successful Kickstarter that netted Great Lakes Clothing Company more than $20,000 will allow the custom clothing company to move into a new collaborative work space on March 1. The company will share space near the North Minneapolis riverfront with several other Minnesota companies—including Marked Leather, Mill City Fineries, and the U.S.-made artisanal clothing and product distributor William Rogue & Co.
 
“We’re committed to the idea of native businesses sticking together, sharing resources and space,” says cofounder Spencer Barrett, hinting at the prospect of future apparel and branding partnerships with Great Lakes’ co-tenants. The move will roughly quadruple Great Lakes’ floor space, from 600 to about 2,400 square feet,
 
For now, cofounders Barrett and David Burke plan to use the expanded space to grow their inventory and make way for new hires to manage inventory, sales and the company’s expanding online presence.
 
Great Lakes has already shipped its branded T-shirts, crew sweaters, polos and accessories — including koozies — to 47 states, building buzz largely through word of mouth, a no-frills video marketing campaign orchestrated by Barrett, and a “brand ambassador” program that recruits college students to sport its clothing on campuses across the Midwest.
 
Customer service doesn’t hurt either. The co-founders include a handwritten thank-you note with every online order and send a follow-up email about a week after each customer’s order arrives.
 
According to the co-founders, Great Lakes’ brand centers around “life at the lake,” a laid-back, nostalgic vibe that’s instantly recognizable to anyone who has spent a warm day near a body of water in Minnesota. The brand’s mascot is an understated loon, a Northern archetype that needs no introduction.
 
“We found a huge gap in the apparel market,” explains Burke. “No one in Minnesota, or anywhere in the Midwest for that matter, was taking advantage of our unique Northern lifestyle and fusing those ideals into a brand. We strive to create fun, useful and well-made products inspired by life at the lake.”
 
“We were inspired by shared memories of time spent around the water” in the Twin Cities and up north, adds Barrett. “It’s a common experience shared not just by people in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Minnesota, but by anyone who lives near fresh water.”
 
Another Great Lakes differentiator: Unlike many of their competitors, including similarly sized startups, Burke and Barrett are committed to a totally American-made supply chain. The pair will oversee all design work at their new Minneapolis studio, even as the company grows.
 
Great Lakes currently relies on a North Carolina manufacturer to supply the bulk of their unfinished shirts — “that’s where most of the American textile industry operates these days,” explains Barrett — with partners in the Twin Cities handling embroidering, printing and other final touches.
 
Though the online sales model is working well for now, Burke and Barrett are hoping to diversify in the months ahead. A last-minute decision to put on a popup store during the holiday season paid off big time, “blowing past our already pretty ambitious projections for November,” says Burke.
 
The co-founders are already exploring additional popup opportunities at outdoor events — including a “winter golf” tournament on Lake Minnetonka in mid-February — and, possibly, local brewery taprooms.
 
But “the dream,” says Burke, “is a flagship store that gets right to the core of the Great Lakes brand,” with an expansive retail area up front and a fulfillment center in the back.
 
“The popup experience has really reinforced the importance of personal connections for us,” says Burke, noting that in-store conversion rates are about five times higher than online. “We want to be as friendly and hospitable to the customer as we can.”
 

Drivers can now reserve and pay for parking spots in advance at most major sports and event venues in the Twin Cities, including the XCel Energy Center, Target Center, Target Field and the Hennepin Theater Trust, thanks to Baltimore-based Parking Panda. The parking-logistics company entered the Twin Cities market within the past 12 months and has already amassed more than two-dozen clients.
 
That initial response vastly exceeded Parking Panda’s expectations. Target Center saw more than 3,500 reservations for a single concert, says Parking Panda marketing director Bryan Lozano, just days after the company went online there.
 
“The Twin Cities has quickly become one of our best markets,” says Lozano. “We’re providing a service that really wasn’t available before and tapping into the region’s dynamic urbanism,” he adds. Parking Panda, he continues, is one more solution in a transportation mix that includes a world-class bike infrastructure. and multiple bus and train lines running connecting the two cities.
 
Lozano ascribes Parking Panda’s rapid adoption to its “great partners.” The company works directly with teams, like the Minnesota Wild and Twins, to promote its parking services and encourage fans to reserve space ahead of time. That reduces congestion before and after games.
 
“One of the biggest drivers of traffic and congestion is people driving around looking for parking,” says Lozano.
 
In addition to major sports and entertainment venues, the company also contracts with garages near West Bank academic buildings, the Minneapolis Convention Center and in the heart of Uptown’s business district. All are big draws for out-of-towners likely to be impressed by the Twin Cities’ smooth parking and transit infrastructure.
 
Parking Panda lets garage and lot operators set prices for individual parking spaces on the Parking Panda site. Drivers can search for spaces near their destination, selecting the cheapest or most affordable ones, and then reserve and pay in advance. Parking Panda takes 20 percent of each transaction and forwards the remaining 80 percent to operators.
 
Though it doesn’t yet do so in the Twin Cities, Parking Panda also lets homeowners and small business owners rent out extra spaces in small lots, driveways or alley, creating new income streams for individuals.
 
Parking Panda doesn’t have a local office, though a single sales rep does support operations in the Twin Cities. The company is exploring opportunities to organize parking for major events like the Minnesota State Fair—which could involve working with hundreds of property owners in Midway and the North Side of St. Paul. That may require a more robust local infrastructure and could create more opportunities for frustrated Twin Cities’ drivers.
 
“Parking can be a painful experience,” says Lozano. “Parking Panda works every day to take the pain out of parking.”
 
 

After months of anticipation, Sisyphus Brewing Company opened its doors to the general public on July 11.The new nano-brewery, located in a former Dunwoody College of Technology storage space near the I-394/94 interchange, has a 100-seat taproom with local artwork, shuffleboard tables and exposed brickwork.That's the first phase.

A 100-seat performance space on the opposite side of its building is still under construction. And a massive, Kickstarter-funded mural on the north side of the building--facing busy I-394--is ready for admiration.

The beer is flowing, too.Owner and head brewer Sam Harriman unveiled four brews at the July 7 "thank you" party for Kickstarter contributors.The Kentucky Common, which is brewed with ingredients you'd find in a typical Kentucky bourbon, was chewy yet refreshing. The Oatmeal Pale Ale--"I've only tasted one other example of this before in the many beers I've tried," says Harriman--evokes several different styles without being derivative.

The black ale with coffee displayed the final stage of the "brewing" process, with Harriman's associate pouring an ounce or so of dark roast coffee into the freshly poured beer. The Brett IPA toed the line between brewer's dream and nightmare, using a wild strain of yeast (brettanomyces). Regarded as a malodorous contaminant in most styles of beer, brettanomyces imparts a sour, spicy, slightly floral note in the right doses. (It worked beautifully.)

"The brewing world is steeped in tradition, and that tradition says bringing brett into a production brewery is a dangerous proposition," says Harriman. "But others I've talked to do it successfully, and with proper cleaning we'll be able to do it successfully too...I view the use of brett as an opportunity to differentiate ourselves in the Twin Cities market."

Harriman is also cognizant of how the Twin Cities' brewery scene looks from an outsider's perspective. The region's craft beer advocates, he argues, can get so caught up in new brewery openings and locals' increasingly sophisticated palettes that they downplay the work that still needs to be done.

"People in the Twin Cities may think we have an awesome brewing culture, which we most certainly do," he says, "but we lag behind many, many cities in the US...to set ourselves apart, we need to do things that aren't being done here yet."

Harriman and the Sisyphus crew have no plans to step on other brewers' toes, though. They won't can or distribute, with the possible exception of a partnership with the Comedy Corner (in the basement of the Corner Bar).

Even that will require regulatory wrangling that Harriman doesn't yet have time for. And even if he wanted to, the taproom's volume would probably make that impossible. With a 2-barrel brewing setup, Sisyphus is officially the Twin Cities' only nanobrewery--the smallest brewery designation there is.

Since he can't brew much of any one brew, being small will actually help Harriman experiment with different styles and circle back to fan favorites. "I brew what I like to drink, and I have a really concrete idea about what I like," he says. "There are so many beers out there nowadays, and it takes something really special to stick out in your mind and make you come back for more...Inspiration and focus is what will set us apart in the long run."

A big part of that inspiration are Harriman's plans for a comedy/performance space in the still-in-progress section of his building. The timing of the buildout--and the opening of the space itself--will depend on the taproom's cash flow.

Harriman hesitated to give a timeframe, but was hopeful about its prospects: "If our customers like our beer enough," he says, "we'll be able to build out the other side of that space."

For now, the brewery is open between noon and 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Additional hours are in the works.

Made, based in Uptown, takes an approach to designing and manufacturing corporate gifts, apparel and novelties that encapsulates client brands and reduces the environmental impact of the manufacturing process.

Made is the brainchild of Michelle Courtright and Kristin Hollander, two "gift industry" veterans who met through mutual friends in the late 2000s. When the bottom fell out of the economy in 2008, the pair decided to abandon their storefronts and join forces to create memorable corporate gifts—"beyond tchotchkes," says Courtright.

Made takes a bespoke approach to each product, usually designing items from scratch. The company started in government procurement. Through contracts with the Pentagon and FBI, Courtright and Hollander devised complex, multi-step solutions to clients' often-inscrutable requests.

"We gained a reputation for figuring stuff out," says Courtright.

Their approach also led to contracts with Twin Cities businesses like Target, as well as with The New York Times and pop culture icons like Pharrell Williams. In Made's nearly six years of operation, the company has relied exclusively on referrals and organic growth.

Another client, Minnesota Public Radio, still relies on Made to design and fulfill gift orders for its 120,000-strong membership base. Early on, when MPR needed a large order of red mugs, Made advised that red dyes manufactured in the United States were highly toxic, eventually finding a German producer that used a less-toxic vegetable base.

As a general rule, Made doesn't like to create disposable or single-use products, although they women bend this rule for such items as USAID's natural disaster relief kits. Made also structures its supply chain, where possible, to avoid redundant shipments.

But the company balances an earnest commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship with realism. "[Our client] Whole Foods knows that its customers won't want to pay $10 for a single tote bag," says Courtright. So Made finds solutions that incorporate low-impact materials without sacrificing affordability.

Although Made has Minnesota roots –and 13 local employees—its approach to manufacturing is a global endeavor. The company sources materials and components from all over Asia, but tries to acquire as many materials as possible from the United States. “The world is more interconnected than you would believe," says Courtright.

ArtsMidwest, an Uptown-based arts organization that forms partnerships with artists and local art organizations throughout the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region, has released a major report to publicize the achievements of its ArtsLab subsidiary. Entitled “Capacity Building and Resilience: What Participants Learned Through ArtsLab,” the exhaustive report outlines the experience of eight organizations, including five from the Twin Cities.

According to Anne Romens, ArtsMidwest’s External Relations Manager, the report “offers key takeaways for nonprofit organizations seeking to build their resiliency and for grantmakers supporting the arts and culture sector.” The report itself is intended for “organizations looking to strengthen their adaptability, funders interested in the leadership qualities that support careful fiscal oversight, and…colleagues in other capacity building programs, both within and beyond the arts community.”

ArtsLab partners can enroll in the Peer Learning Community, an intensive, two-year “training and technical assistance program that brings diverse arts leaders together in a supportive, collaborative environment.” Components of the Peer Learning include mentorship assignments, monthly webinars, quarterly retreats, and training sessions that focus on financial management, strategic planning, community engagement and impact evaluation.

The five participating Twin Cities organizations had incisive feedback for ArtsLab—and the program’s future participants. During its first year working with ArtsLab, All My Relations Arts was evicted from its space at the Great Neighborhoods! Development Corporation, forcing the organization to hastily partner with the Native American Community Development Institute and seek funding assistance from ArtsLab. Over the subsequent two years, All My Relations found a new gallery and performance space that now anchors Franklin Avenue’s ascendant American Indian Cultural Corridor.

Mizna, a St. Paul organization that sponsors the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, nearly went bust when its former director resigned to pursue her writing career. ArtsLab helped the organization secure much-needed funding to carry it through. But Rabi’h Nahas, Mizna’s board director at the time, is even more appreciative of the guidance and experience of ArtsLab’s staff and educators.

In addition to the report and accompanying case studies, ArtsLab released a complementary video series on ArtsMidwest’s YouTube channel, including contributions from the studied organizations.

ArtsLab was founded in 1999 with grants from six funding partners, including the Bush Foundation. According to its website, the initiative aims to “support the acquisition of new skills, tools, and habits [that enable] navigation in a constantly changing environment” through “a highly participatory process.” It’s permanently staffed by Program Director Sharon Rodning Bash, Program Manager Angela Keeton, and Program Assistant Emily Anderson, and supported by a national group of educators and arts leaders.

 

Got big plans for April 26? Lu Lippold, the local producer for One Day on Earth’s “One Day in the Twin Cities,” has a suggestion: Grab whatever video recording device you can—cameraphones included—and record the audio-visual pulse of your neighborhood.

On the final Saturday of April, the Twin Cities and 10 other U.S. metros will host the fourth installment of One Day on Earth’s celebration of film, culture, and all-around placemaking. Founded by Los Angeles-based film producers Kyle Ruddick and Brandon Litman, One Day on Earth (ODOE) has a “goal of creating a unique worldwide media event where thousands of participants would simultaneously film over a 24-hour period,” according to its website.

The first event took place on October 10, 2010 (10-10-10); 11-11-11 and 12-12-12 followed. ODOE skipped 2013, but its organizers weren’t about to wait until 2101 for their next shot. Instead, they selected a spring Saturday—both to accommodate amateur filmmakers with 9-to-5 jobs, and to give participants in the Northern Hemisphere longer daylight hours to work with—for a bigger, bolder, slightly revamped version of the event.

For the first time, participants get 10 questions to inspire their creativity and guide their storytelling, from “What is the best thing happening in your city today?” to “Who is your city not serving?” The goal is to create a multi-frame snapshot of “cities in progress,” one that doesn’t simply answer the who-what-where of the places it covers.

As One Day in the Twin Cities’ point person, Lippold supervises local filmmakers and pitched the project to dozens of partner organizations, including the Science Museum of Minnesota and Springboard for the Arts to visual media companies like Cinequipt and Vimeo. (The McKnight Foundation and the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative are the largest local sponsors.)

The upside? “[The event] is a great way to shine a light on all the hard work that our nonprofit community does,” says Lippold.

Lippold also works with a handful of local ambassadors, some of whom enjoy national acclaim. These include noted cinematographer Jeff Stonehouse, veteran documentarian Matt Ehling, and community-focused filmmaker D.A. Bullock. They’ll be contributing their talents—and stature—to One Day in the Twin Cities’ promotion and execution.

One Day in the Twin Cities could be seen well beyond Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Along with their counterparts from other participating cities, local filmmakers may see their work incorporated into a condensed, three-part series that Litman and Lichtbau will market to PBS affiliates around the country. No word on whether TPT will air the special, but TPT Rewire has agreed to publicize the event in the coming weeks.

The real stars of One Day in the Twin Cities, though, are its filmmakers. Even if you’ve never filmed anything in your life, says Lippold, you can contribute meaningful work. Thanks to an interactive map feature on ODOE’s main site, the work will visible to anyone who visits.

“If I were just starting out in video, I would see this as a huge opportunity,” says Lippold. Since all contributions are credited by name and location, each participant “instantly becomes a documentary filmmaker,” she adds.

Source: Lu Lippold
Writer: Brian Martucci

For some time now, CoCo has set the standard for creative and professional collaboration in the Twin Cities. The coworking space recently opened its third location, in Uptown, and now boasts well over 100 startups, creative firms, designers, and developers in its membership rolls.

Two of CoCo’s founders, Kyle Coolbroth and Don Ball, have launched a brand-new project, Jump! A School by CoCo. The school aims to actively develop participants' creative ambitions rather than passively providing a place for them to play out.

“Since starting CoCo four years ago…we've seen many [business owners] succeed. We've also seen many fail,” says Ball. “It's really sad to see the pain that someone goes through when they can't make their dream a reality.”

Part motivational seminar, part team-building exercise, and part business incubator, Jump! aims to give entrepreneurs a head start and reduce the likelihood of “preventable failure.” Ultimately, says Ball, the school can fill a gaping need in the region’s creative economy.

“I'm not sure what else is like Jump! school,” says Ball, although he identifies the School of Life in London and Chris Gillebeau’s World Domination Summit as kindred spirits. “[Currently], entrepreneur education focuses on skills—how to program, design, manage a business, pitch to investors, and so on. All of that is important, depending on what you're up to. But are you up to the right thing? We didn't see anyone helping people figure out that fundamental question.”

Jump!’s mission—to give anyone wanting to launch a radical career shift, charity, business, or other special project the self-confidence, motivation, and practical tools necessary to take the plunge into the startup world—is embodied in three course offerings. The first, Springboard, is a 90-minute crash course in Jump!’s philosophy and approach. The $50 class, which will happen at least once per month through June, promises to “leave [attendees] inspired and dangerous.”

Intrigued Springboard attendees—or truly motivated folks who want to dive right into an intensive curriculum—can sign up for FlightPlan, a two-day, $500 marathon that encourages attendees to strip away external expectations, outgrow learned responses to stress, and discover “what truly activates [their] passion and imagination.”

Graduates of FlightPlan may move on to Solo Club, a practical, immersive experience that runs for 90 days and results in the creation of a formal business plan or creative project. More detail about this offering will emerge as Jump!’s student body grows.

Where does this all lead? Ball and Coolbroth haven’t even taught a class yet—the first Springboard meeting is scheduled for January 20—but the future looks bright. The Twin Cities area has no shortage of creative talent, and Jump! has no direct competitors. Should the school pan out, there’s also nothing stopping Jump! from exporting its model to other creative regions.

“We want to help people zero in on what is truly motivating because it comes from deep inside,” says Ball. “If you build your life's work on that foundation, then you're much more likely to be successful in that work. And everybody from customers to partners to investors [gravitate] to people who are coming from a place of power and authenticity.”

Source: Don Ball, co-founder, Jump! A School by CoCo
Writer: Brian Martucci

Smart Factory, a new school for mobile app development located in Minneapolis’s Uptown neighborhood, is on a mission to deepen the tech talent pool in Minnesota. 

Jeff Lin of Bust Out Solutions, and Mike Bollinger of TechdotMN and Livefront, who are friends and colleagues, founded Smart Factory, which held its inaugural classes in October.   

The need for Smart Factory rose out of rapid changes in the web and mobile industry, Lin says. “Formal academic training can’t keep up” with the changes, he says, adding that some developers find it difficult to stay on the cutting-edge while working a full-time job. 

The tech scene is “already being pushed forward by market forces and people’s desires and interests. We hope to help that cause by training people directly,” he says.

Smart Factory's program is aimed at experienced designers and engineers who want to expand their skills, especially those related to web and mobile app technology. Companies can also send employees to the school to gain software development skills, as opposed to having to outsource those skills.     

Six-week classes, led by leaders in the field, cover Mobile UI Design, Ruby on Rails, Web Production, iOS Development, and Android Development. Students follow along with the lessons on their laptops. 

Class sizes are no more than 16 people, to ensure everyone gets plenty of individual attention, Lin says. Two mentor-teachers lead the classes, as well. “In programming and design courses, there’s a lot of hands-on activity, so it’s always good to have one-on-one time with teachers,” he says. 

Additionally, students are expected to spend another 10 to 15 hours on their studies outside of the classroom, according to Smart Factory materials.  

Lin hopes the school fosters collaboration within the local tech community. “We want to educate people about what we’re passionate about," he says. "It’s less of a competition and more of a collaboration. Collaborative competition is good too."

Although schools like Smart Factory are popping up around the country, few exist in the Twin Cities. With the opening of Smart Factory, Lin expects other schools to will launch within the next couple of years. 

Source: Jeff Lin, co-founder, Smart Factory
Writer: Anna Pratt 

A new venture in Minneapolis is innovating ways to connect nonprofits with young professionals who want to give their time and skills.

Jim Delaney, a former director with The LEAD Project, started Engine L3C after an experience as a board member at the YMCA.

"I wanted to do more than show up once a quarter and provide my advice and raise a little bit of money in the meantime," says Delaney. "I wanted to use what I thought were my skills and capabilities a little bit more directly to solve the problems that the 'Y' was facing."

So many nonprofit volunteer opportunities consist of one-day opportunities, helping out here and there with events and fundraising, he thought. Meanwhile, he understood that most directors were too busy with day-to-day demands to tackle big-picture challenges.

Delaney's idea: put together small strike teams of young professional volunteers to tackle big-picture projects. He pitched it to the YMCA and recruited 24 volunteers to work on six projects. One team created a guide for social media use. Another created a 140-page best practices handbook after analyzing the best practices at each of the local YMCA's 14 branches and camps.

Delaney recruits and matches volunteers to the project teams that best match their skills. A typical project lasts about six months, after which the volunteers are free to move on or get involved in a different way.

The young volunteers, most of whom are between the ages of 25 and 35, get personal and professional development, as well as a more satisfying volunteer experience. Meanwhile, the nonprofits, which pay $1,000 per month per project, get professional services for a fraction of what they would otherwise cost.

After 10 projects with the YMCA, about a month ago Engine started another project with the Neighborhood Development Center. Next, Delaney hopes to get corporations involved by offering the program to their employees as a professional development tool.

Source: Jim Delaney, Engine L3C
Writer: Dan Haugen

A Minneapolis marketing and branding firm is growing into its arty new digs in the Lyn-Lake neighborhood.

Zeus Jones is a few months into its fourth year, and it appears to be its best on a record so far, according to founding partner Adrian Ho. It's grown in the past few years from four partners to about 20 employees, and it's still hiring.

Zeus Jones was founded in March 2007 around the idea that actions speak louder than words. Traditional advertising was, and still is, becoming less and less effective, the four co-founders thought, and there had to be a better way.

"Our whole thing was like, look, let's stop annoying customers and take some of that money and start doing things that actually enhance the product or experience," says Ho. "If you do that, people will do a lot of the talking for you." An example: a recent Zeus Jones project for Nordstroms involved putting photo booths next to the junior department dressing rooms so teen girls could share photos with friends or parents before deciding whether to buy.

Over the past few years the firm has outgrown its 1,100-square-foot Uptown space, and so when its lease ran out it made the move to more spacious digs in the Soo Visual Arts Center building near 27th and Lyndale. The gallery's director, Suzy Greenberg, had been looking for a tenant to help share costs, and "it seemed like a great match," says Ho. " She wanted a creative company and we like the idea of helping to support the arts through our rent."

The reasons for the company's growth, says Ho, likely have to do with the fact that businesses know they're getting less and less for their money via traditional advertising, and that Zeus Jones' small size and flexibility make it easy for companies to experiment. The company's clients include General Mills, Nestle Purina, and Haagen-Dazs.

Source: Adrian Ho, Zeus Jones
Writer: Dan Haugen

Mono, a fast-growing Minneapolis advertising and branding agency, has entered into an agency-of-record relationship with cable news network MSNBC.

According to an NBC Universal press release, mono "will be MSNBC's creative and strategic partner for marketing campaign development and advertising efforts."

"Mono has a strong track record of success and we're thrilled to have them as our strategic and creative partner." Sharon Otterman, Chief Marketing Officer of MSNBC, said in the announcement.

Mono's managing partner, James Scott, said that his firm is "thrilled" to help MSNBC continue to build momentum in the competitive news space, but neither company is saying much else about the deal.

It could be that they're just plain too busy. Mono is one of the fastest growing agencies in the country, adding more than 20 employees in the last 12 months. It expects to add at least 12 more in the coming months. A spokesman says new business is up 65 percent year-to-date compared to 2009, with new clients including Parsons The New School for Design, HGTV, Johnson & Johnson's Rolaids brand, and MSNBC.

Mono was recently named one of the best small agencies in the country by Advertising Age magazine.

The company has a track record in television, too. Mono's very first client was Sesame Street, and it also was behind USA Networks' "Characters Welcome" campaign.

Source: Jim Scott, Mono
Writer: Dan Haugen