Man, what ever happened to RefreshBCS? Didn’t they use to hold semi-regular events and bring in speakers from all parts of the web spectrum?
Well, to answer all those questions, yeah, I got real busy with all kinds of projects — Rock The Republic, Hashtags, BIL, etc.

All that said, I’d like to invite everyone, yes EVERYONE up to the Creative Space for a community networking event. Who does that entail? Developers, designers, writers, marketing folk… even MySpace Template developers. We’re hoping to pack the place in and get everyone back together and start being more active. I’ve missed seeing everyone week to week. So here’s the low down:

When: Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 @ 7PM
Where: The Creative Space – Above Square One Bistro
Who: You and everyone cool, no pets
Why: Because we’ve got all day Thursday to watch Hulu. Seriously?
What: Intellectual stimulating conversations, booze, wine, music…

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this event is a BYOB. I know it would be a lot cooler if we had a bunch of free alcohol, but that’s life. Grab a sixer or a bottle of wine, or a handle of Seagrams Seven and head on up. Ya know what… even if you have a 1/2 bottle of McCormick’s vodka, go ahead and bring that too, cheapskate.

I guess RSVP on the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=433057800573

I’m really excited about our September RefreshBCS Speaker!

We’re hosting Gary Hoover, a lifelong learner and entrepreneur, best known for Hoovers.com. This should be a great talk, and I highly suggest sticking around afterward to have a conversation with Gary.

Date: Wednesday, September 9th, 7pm
Location: Village Cafe in Downtown Bryan
Register on Facebook

Here’s a little more about Gary:

Gary Hoover began his entrepreneurial journey at an early age. His question about enterprises was, “What separates the losers from the winners?”  He began subscribing to Fortune Magazine at the age of 12, and has acquired most of the issues back to 1930.

As part of his education, he studied economics at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman and two other Nobel Prize winners, served as a securities analyst for Citibank on Wall Street, worked as a buyer for Federated Department Stores, and headed up acquisitions and strategic planning for the giant May Department Stores Company.

At the age of 30, after he finally took the plunge and created pioneering book superstore BOOKSTOP, which helped change the nature of book shopping in America.  This company was sold to Barnes & Noble for $41.5 million cash when it was 7 years old, and became a cornerstone for their industry-dominating superstore chain.

After he and his partners sold BOOKSTOP, Gary returned to his first love of understanding businesses, and began the company that became Hoover’s, the world’s largest Internet-based provider of information about enterprises.  Hoovers.com covers over 40,000 companies around the world.  In July of 1999, Hoover’s went public and in March of 2003, the company was purchased by Dun & Bradstreet for $117 million.  Like BOOKSTOP, Hoover’s has changed the way we do things and today employs over 300 people.

He continues to keep over 100 ideas for new businesses on his list.

Gary lives in Austin, Texas, with his 50,000-book library.  He has consulted, spoken to conferences, and worked to encourage entrepreneurial thinking on every continent and in every industry, for profit and not for profit.  He has also supported the University of Chicago.  In 2009 he launched www.hooversworld.com, a blog which will include reviews of books, ideas, and places from Gary’s iconoclastic angle.

Refreshers!

After a few months of taking some time off to plan other events, it’s about time we get together and explore new ideas. I’ve managed to wrangle in two speakers that will be speaking to the group about venture capital, entrepreneurship, and how to get our ideas out of our heads and into the marketplace.

Kevin Koym (@kkoym) and Jonas Lamis (@jonaslamis) run a multi-site incubator in Austin, TX named TechRanch. They have taken numerous companies under their wing, including Piryx, IPX, OneSpot, begreeted, Zehicle, Notice Technologies, OpenSesa.me, and many others.

More info: http://techranchaustin.com/

Pre-seed and seed stage companies that can change the world.

Tech Ranch Austin is a community of vibrant tech start-ups surrounded by the people, processes and materials needed to drive business success.

General Partners

Kevin Koym is Founder and CEO of Enterprise Teaming LLC, an Austin business incubator. Kevin is also co-founder of Bootstrap Austin, a 600+ member entrepreneur community.

Jonas Lamis is Founder and CEO of SciVestor Corporation, an Austin based technology research and advisory firm. He has previously held leadership roles at several VC backed technology companies.

Date/Time/Location:
Wednesday, March 25th @ 6:30PM
Location: Astin Mansion

In a lot of ways, we will be showcasing our local talent to these guys as well as finding out what they have to offer. It’s important that we, as a community, show up and represent well.

Are you a designer or someone looking to get introduced to some creative individuals? You should attend Design Camp!

It’s happening next Saturday, January 17th at the Astin Mansion in Downtown Bryan. We’re expecting to have creative types from all over the state in attendance, so we hope we can get some of the locals out to the event as well. To top it off, the event is run in the Barcamp style. What does that mean for you? Its free and you’re guaranteed to find something interesting to take away from the event!

If you want some more information on the event make sure to check out the following:

Facebook Event – Make sure you say you are attending here and send myself or Roby a message with your t-shirt size if you want one. If you don’t let us know you’re coming we can’t guarantee you’ll have a shirt.

Design Camp Website – Here you can find information, maps, sponsor information, and you can also use the contact form on this page to send us info, or t-shirt sizes as mentioned above.

Blogs – Roby and myself both have posted to our sites about the event as well, so help us spread the word by linking people to this post, our website, or our blogs so that we can spread the love.

Hope to see you next weekend,

Michael Cummings

Title: Maker Faire
Location: Travis County Expo Center, Austin, TX
Link out: Click here
Description: Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It\’s for creative, resourceful people of all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things. So much to see, you will need 2 days to see it all!
Start Time: 10:00
Date: 2008-10-18
End Time: 07:00

If you would like to participate in a ride share please post in the comments of this post and self-organize. Yaye!

Where: Murphy’s Law (upstairs) map
When: October 1st 7PM (Happy Hour starting at 5)
Speaker: Michelle Greer

We’ve been quiet for a while but it’s time to get this show back on the road. We’ve got several months worth of great speakers lined up and we’re starting this thing off with a bang. Michelle Greer has been kicking ass and taking names in the Austin area for quite some time and she has no plans to stop anytime soon. Come listen to her speak about how she uses social media to institute real-life change in the world around us.

Making Social Media Matter:
How Social Media Turns Everyday Citizens into Superheroes

In an age where anyone can publish anything for the cost of hosting a WordPress blog, the means for spreading ideas has never been easier or cheaper.  Learn how people have used social media to mobilize people at rates never seen before in history, and how these tools make it easy for you to bring about positive change for your community.

Speaker Info:

Michelle Greer
Web Marketing Strategist
http://www.michellesblog.net
512.294.3909

Have you put your iPhone in a blender lately?
(Social Media Marketing – What it is, how it impacts us, and why it’s important.)
Time: 7:00PM
Date: Wednesday, April 23
Location: Rola’s Revolution in Bryan, TX
All of us are well aware of the impact that social media networks such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter (among many others) have had on our online behavior and the way we communicate with each other. As people spend more time on these networks, marketers are trying to create new and innovative ways to reach and influence people online.

This presentation will provide an overview of the fast moving world of social media marketing and will include examples of successful (and unsuccessful) attempts made by various brands in the social media space. It will also cover best practices for launching a social media marketing campaign.

Nikhil Nilakantan is Founder & CEO of Social Span Media LLC (www.socialspan.com), a social media marketing, strategy and product company. His company helps clients leverage social media as part of the product and brand marketing campaigns. Aside from strategic consulting, Social Span Media also develops social applications for platforms such as Facebook, MySpace and many others.

Nikhil Nilakantan
President & CEO
Social Span Media LLC
+1.214.929.9159
nikhil@socialspan.com
follow my social media blog:
www.strategicast.com

Things have been crazy lately folks. With BarCampTX, SXSWi and an expansion of The Creative Space, we haven’t had time to give the deserved attention to RefreshBCS. But that’s about to change! We have two speakers lined up which will be formally announced when we find the space to host. If ANYONE has a presentation or presenter in mind, please let us know. RefreshBCS is about the community and their interests. Thanks for your time and stay tuned for future updates!

- Roby Fitzhenry

Date: Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Time: 7:00PM
Location: Caffe Capri (website)

Kelsey Ruger, of PopLabs, will be presenting “Rewinding the Clock: reawakening your childhood creativity”. Here’s a brief run-down:

Has your clock stopped? That’s a question we all ought to be asking ourselves – because sometimes the clock has stopped and we don’t know it. Most of us don’t remember the moment when as a child we discovered passion. This passion is about discovery – and discovery with all it’s freshness and excitement is the foundation of creativity.

Children have a natural tendency for discovery. They don’t have to be taught to ask questions, be creative, or think unconventionally. It just happens that way. It takes a lifetime of experience and education to take away what was given to us at birth. We race through our careers often never recognizing that creativity is as important to business as DNA is to evolution.

Explore how professional in all fields can apply creative and visual thinking skills to their work as well as why people ignore the talents that made them naturally creative as children. He will discuss the myths that people hold about creativity, why they exist and how you can overcome them.

Kelsey was recently involved with the “Got Social Media?” conference in Houston and will be presenting at South by Southwest in just a couple of weeks. You may have met him at BarCampTexas, which was hosted just across the street from Caffe Capri in Downtown Bryan.

Games and resources

Game – Befudium
Game – Pictionary
Game – Taboo
Game – Buzzwords
Game – Cranium
Game – Pop 5
Game – ThinkCube
Game – Visual Eyes
Game – Stare
Get Unstuck and Get Going
The Inner Vision Deck
KnowBrainer Toolkit
Ideo Card Deck
Think Pak
Free The Genie
Creative Whack Pack

Books

Thinking Visually: Business Applications of 14 Core Diagrams
ThinkerToy
Innovative Whackpack
Cracking Creativity
Creative Ball of Whacks
A Whack on the Side of the head
Beyond Words
Visual Thinking: Tools for mapping ideas
A Picture’s Worth 1,000 Words: A Workbook for Visual Communications
Mapping Inner Space: Learning and Teaching Visual Mapping
The Story Factor
The Art of Storytelling: Easy Steps to Presenting an Unforgettable Story
Cambridge Idioms Dictionary
Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms
Webster’s New World American Idioms Handbook
Personal Brilliance

Web Sites

Visual Thinking Tools
The Doodle Association Game
Visual Thinking Art
Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
The Power of Visual Thinking
Visual Thinking on Answers.com
Visual Language on Answers.com
Visual Thesaurus
Global Ideas Bank
Innovation Tools
Creative Thinking

Refresh Austin will be co-hosting a kickass party with Phizzpop at South by Southwest Interactive. This will be the major party on Monday evening (March 10^th), so I highly recommend you add the event to your Upcoming calendar, and let your friends know so they can come join them for free drinks, cool technology and great company.