Distilled

Pre-show antics with Tracy Ingram

If you've ever taught a class, you know how hard it is to engage students for more than a few minutes. Online courses have their own challenges. This week, we discuss some of the nuance of explaining to someone else things we know innately.

JJ Roberts of Tampa Bay Innovation Center joins us to tell stories of his startup endeavors, including an insider's view of Y Combinator. What does it take to build a sustainable ecosystem where startup companies of all kinds can thrive? Leadership in a culture of collaboration.

This week, we recap Ignite Tampa 2014, an event where twenty people each share their story in 20 slides, each auto-advancing every 15sec. The goal is to make you think, make you cry, and inspire you to take action to improve your life and the lives of others. Aubrey spoke about vulnerability as a lifestyle choice, not as a position of weakness, but as one of strength through adaptation, openness, and perseverance. Both Aubrey and Justin have spoken at past Ignite events.

Pre-show antics, raw.

As mobile technology dominates the digital landscape, we are now starting to see evidence that application design is taking second place to service design. Interactions are no longer bound to a single isolated experience. Instead, they span multiple platforms, from laptop to mobile to wearable device across time and space.

The wonderful folks from Goose Island Beer Company sat down with us to sample some beer and tell stories. They're in Tampa as part of their Migration Week tour, buying people beer and giving out swag, promoting their excellent beer. Make sure to pick up some Goose Island next time you're shopping for craft beer.

This week, we recap the amazing experience that was Give Day Tampa Bay, a 24hr fund raising event where we raised over one million dollars for local non-profit organizations.

We are joined by special guests Mitch Neff, Saxon Baum, Ned Pope, and Taylor Wallace for a comprehensive recap of OneSpark, a crowdfunding event held in Jacksonville, FL. It was a huge event this year, with nearly 300k attendees. Tampa Bay was represented well, with Justin promoting Drawer (http://getdrawer.com), Saxon and Taylor engaging with users to improve WeVue (http://wevue.com), Mitch representing Startup Bus (http://startupbus.com), and Ned championing Florida Next (http://floridanext.org). What can we learn from this event, and how can we build upon its success? Find out in this lively episode.

After a month hiatus, while Justin traveled to Tel Aviv, we return in this hilarious episode about the uncanny parallels between conversational interactions and the interactions between lovers. The cycles of behavior in how we talk and how we love are strikingly similar. Though seemingly academic in nature, the discussion opens with Justin regaling us with stories of Israeli prostitutes and their business cards.