Great Local Start-up News – Soapbox Media

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Great Logo Development

Steve just ran across this site and I wanted to share it with everyone - http://logotournament.com/ - it's a logo design site that's perfect for start-ups.

This site allows you to submit an amount (example $300), a time limit (example 7 days), and a few characteristics from their guidelines (feminine, simple, colorful, sporty, modern, serious) to freelance designers who compete with multiple designs - using your comments on their drafts! It speeds up the creative process for logo design and is a great way to get an inexpensive first-round logo professionally developed.

For a great example, click on My Scorecard (one of the projects). This is Steve's friend's logotournament - pretty cool.

If you have other helpful sites for the group... let us know!

Closing the Innovation Gap

A number of InOneWeekenders along with a sizable group of regional entrepreneurs gathered at Via Vite Saturday for lunch to discuss Judy Estrin's book, Closing The Innovation Gap. Great discussion. I'm looking forward to digging into the book. Rather than rehash a number of ideas again, you can read my synopsis of Estrin's thoughts here.

I did want to bring up a couple of important ideas that Estrin surfaced during the course of our discussion. Innovation comes from teams much more than from individuals. To that end, someone asked how important diversity is to innovation. The generally accepted answer is "very," and Estrin agreed. She put a spin on the response, though, and added, "not for the reasons you would think."

Diversity is important, but that diversity is particular. In particular, cognitive diversity is important to innovation. Bringing together broad perspectives and experiences adds much more value to the innovative process. Sure, that probably means gender, racial, and ethnic diversity, but not simply because of the color of our skin. It is our collective experience that adds value.

I immediately thought back to our July weekend and could see how all of our participation in InOneWeekend brought together people that would otherwise never have met. We shared and contributed our broad experiences to a collective effort that none of us could have accomplished alone.

- Andy

Have you heard about Wallstick?

What do your walls say about You? Philanthropist and entrepreneur, Meredith Holthaus, thinks they could say so much more. Wallstick, a large format true-color adhesive print, allows you to take personal and meaningful moments and easily display them on your wall. To take the idea to the next level, Meredith leveraged relationships created during InOneWeekend to generate a plan.

With the kickoff of InOneAfternoon, a number of entrepreneurs came together for two hours of brainstorming and planning. The outcome produced a number of Wallstick ideas to support Holthaus' efforts and the structure for a format that allows entrepreneurs to regularly support each others' efforts. InOneWeekend showed us that a group of 100 can quite deeply and thoroughly vet an idea and create a business plan in one weekend in a way that a solitary business owner might not be able to do in 3 or 4 years. Does the same hold true for smaller or more focused efforts? I think so. Meredith walked away with a number of new ideas.

What I think this means for the Cincinnati entrepreneur community is that our efforts will become more and more visible to each other and the larger community. The top down efforts like Cincinnati's Agenda 360 to unite and direct regional growth efforts are necessary. Approaching regional growth from the bottom up with efforts like InOneWeekend and InOneAfternoon round out a full set of offerings that will inject some vibrant energy into the local community and regional economy. The region has a lot of great people looking to make a difference, and efforts like InOneWeekend and InOneAfternoon provide a forum to bring many of these people together.

- Andy