Month: October 2014

Here’s the room where AlligatorZone will hold its first session in the City of Mountain View, California.

It is a meeting room at the Mountain View Public Library.

I had a chance to visit the library recently.  As with every AlligatorZone program in a library, there’s always someone who decides to take a chance on us and allows us to bring the program.  It is getting easier though, with each passing month because we are building a track-record of having not only brought startup founders to an audience of kids and teens, but also learning how to keep our audience of digital natives engaged and interested in learning from those who are in the middle of the creative process that any startup entails.

Meet Karin Bricker, Library Manager, Youth and Outreach Services, City of Mountain View Public Library.  Karin was extremely gracious in taking the time to meet with me early morning on a Saturday to accommodate my compressed travel schedule.

With Karin Bricker’s recommendations as to the timings and promotional methods, we tentatively decided on exploring a launch in November.

At my request, Karin also graciously provided me with a tour of the library, which helped us understand the strong community ties that the library has nurtured with the parents and children.

The paper-clip bunting covers the ceiling of the library’s children’s section, each clip representing a book read during the summer by kids in the community.

The one thing that we have learned doing several of these AlligatorZone sessions featuring startup founders in front of kids, is that there no way to know what to expect.  Startup founders have been asking me for video samples, so we recently recorded one session in South Tampa, however all that it really shows is that entrepreneurs do well when they allow the kids in the audience to download and use an app instantly, or when the product being displayed offers a tactile experience.

Take for example, the demo product shown by LumaStream, where the kids could manipulate the lighting system from an iPad that the founder Eric Higgs had brought along.

Take a look at how engaged the kids are with the BriefSkate displayed by inventor and Looshes Lab founder Alexei Novitzky.

Even Brian DiVito of WazInIt had the audience completely engaged because he told a personal story behind his startup.

One can’t help but notice that even the parents who are present really get excited meeting the entrepreneurs, probably because entrepreneurs usually exude optimism and faith in their company becoming successful.

Let’s do a quick recap.  Entrepreneurs have infectious energy.  Children and teens have infectious energy.  I suspect, in some ways, entrepreneurs are like children – they work with hope, optimism, they embrace vulnerability, and are willing to dust themselves off and get back in the game, should they stumble and get bruised.

No wonder, people tend to leave an AlligatorZone session with a spring in their step — especially if it ends with an entrepreneur reciting a poem he wrote and then leads the kids to his ride which he customized as a marketing banner for his product, and even lets them scrawl their names on it.

We are indeed excited about our launch at Mountain View Public Library, in Mountain View, California with one of the presenting startup founders being someone who was personally involved in coding Ratatouille, the Pixar movie. See you in Mountain View, California on November 19th!  Who says Alligators and Mountains do not mix.

Follow AlligatorZone on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AlligatorZone.  Join us for the next session of AlligatorZone.  A running schedule and reservations are at AlligatorZone.eventbrite.com.  Mountain View Public Library will open their own registrations 2 weeks prior to the event.  AlligatorZone is one of several impact-programs being designed at SiliconGlades.  If you know of startups that would make for interesting presenters to an audience of kids, teens and families, please send your suggestion to events [at] siliconglades [dot] com.

This report was posted by a volunteer from SiliconGlades, an innovation firm that designs hyperlocal social impact programs such as AlligatorZone.  In other words, SiliconGlades designs programs that bring communities together for a common uplifting purpose, right in your neighborhood.

We continue our series of picture-essays while sharing some of the lessons learned doing more AlligatorZone sessions at a local public library.  AlligatorZone is, where kids (and that includes teens), their parents and other members of the community get to meet with startup founders, learn about them and offer constructive feedback and insights.  AlligatorZone has found a great reception by the community and incredible success simply by working with public libraries in different cities.

As we fine-tune this program with support from the various library teams, we are learning about what works and what does not, not just in terms of different seating arrangements or promotional campaigns, but also the mix of startups being presented and the sequence in which they are presented for keeping the young audience completely engaged.

We plan to use this knowledge to make startup founders better prepared to present complex ideas in simple words, to the general community.  I heard recently from a fellow entrepreneur in town who used to regularly get featured on CNBC to speak on TV as a financial markets expert, that they were always advised to speak to the camera by imagining that they are talking to a 4th grader.  At AlligatorZone, there’s no need to just imagine that – we actually have 4th graders present, along with teens and soccer moms, and entrepreneurs, even dads and moms who are angel investors showing up to see and hear the entrepreneurs, and more importantly, to be heard.

We do not coach the presenting founders specifically, but we have a lot of written material including a list of 31 tips on talking startup stuff with kids.  Saxon Baum began asking the kids questions about their own entrepreneurial ideas after he completed his short pitch, but I stepped in to help out by reminding everyone that we want to focus on the business of the entrepreneur.  Things went smoothly after than, and questions and suggestions started pouring in. Based on more founders asking us to show videos of what to expect, we have plans to record speakers even while they are presenting.  It may present some challenges because we all tend to behave differently when we are on camera.  However, we are willing to try and tweak this till we get it right.

Here are some pictures of the first segment of the morning.

In the picture above, young members of the audience talk to WeVue co-founder Saxon Baum sharing interesting insights, which leaves everyone pleasantly surprised.  These sessions are very joyous because of the unique insights and the unfiltered comments from the kids who have a certain innate pureness in the way they see the world.

People gather and watch the startup founder talking, and things are kept very informal.  Passersby also stop and join the audience, because it is a public library and it is a Saturday morning, so those who are already there looking for books are often not in a rush.

Let’s take a look at some more scenes and post-event interviews from the September 13th AlligatorZone session in South Tampa, in Forida.  The startups that were featured were WeVue and LumaStream, and their founders were present to talk to the community.

The session began at the Jan Kaminis Platt Library with WeVue cofounder Saxon Baum presenting their app.  The video screen in the background was not hooked up, but as you can see in the pictures, several of the young members of the audience used their parents’ mobile devices to start playing with WeVue’s app.

The circular and cozy seating arrangement seems to be working fine in getting the kids more engaged with the startup founders who are presenting.  This was unplanned, but the idea is to make the entrepreneurs seem human without the aura that popular media confers upon them.  The unspoken message to the kids and teens is that even they can come up with an idea, build something worthwhile and change the world.

This teenager chose to stay in the background and watch the proceedings. His mother had driven almost an hour to bring him to the session.  She was also interested in learning how to become an angel investor to participate in an investment round of one of the startups being featured.  At AlligatorZone, we are still figuring out how to convey the message clearly and concisely that the program is not just for kids, but for teenagers as well.  The elementary kids do not mind being grouped with the older ones, but teenagers seem apprehensive about a program that they, we are told, suspect is child’s play — but it’s not child’s play by any measure — it’s serious stuff.  These are serious and overly busy entrepeneurs who show up on a Saturday morning to talk to them and hear them out.  It takes us 2 to 3 months before getting a startup founder scheduled and confirmed to present.  Startup founders especially are extremely busy because they wear many hats and it is harder to get an event on their calendar than most business executives.

With Saturday morning sessions, the challenge is that 10:15 a.m. may be too early for parents to pack kids in their cars or minivans.  By the time Saxon Baum of WeVue was wrapping up his session, the audience grew larger and even attracted some curious passers-by.  If you have a crowd, it is easier to make it bigger even in mid-session, especially when it is held in an open area of the library, as you can see below.

Here’s Saxon Baum, cofounder of WeVue sharing his thoughts on the experience, after the session concluded.  Saxon brought stickers for the children, which were of course a big hit!

The next presenter was Eric Higgs, the founder and CEO of LumaStream out of St. Petersburg in the Tampa Bay Area.  Eric brought a demo product which the kids could manipulate using an iPad.  Let’s take a look at some of the pictures and a video interview at the end of the session.

Eric Higgs unknowingly creates a halo for himself using his a demo piece that uses LumaStream’s technology.  Or was it the result of all that adulation from the young audience?

The audio-visual equipment is still not functional, so that’s one thing we need to improve so that founders can show their product on the bigger screen.  Having to hold up a laptop is not ideal with an audience that is so dispersed even within that small area.

Eric Higgs had an engaged audience curious about energy conservation and even digressing into fish territory, but they soon came back to LumaStream technology when Eric switched on his product demo.

It got even better when he let the kids control it from an iPad.

We spoke to Eric Higgs after the session, and obtained feedback so we could keep improving upon this new community resource.

It was soon time to wrap the session.  Melissa Falvey, manager of the library thanked everyone and reminded them of the next session a month later.

AlligatorZone, has since received recognition and support from the Economic Development Innovation Initiative of the Hillsborough County for this session in an HCPLC Library in Tampa Bay Area, and it is also getting the attention of businesses looking to sponsor the program for its unique value to communities.   This will ensure the program’s longevity and evolution.  We will be in South Tampa, Florida again, and for the first time in Mountain View, California, in November 2014.  See you at the next session of AlligatorZone!  Sign-ups are at http://AlligatorZone.eventbrite.com

Follow AlligatorZone on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AlligatorZone.  Join us for the next session of AlligatorZone.  Reservations are to be made at AlligatorZone.eventbrite.com.  AlligatorZone is one of several impact programs being designed at SiliconGlades.  If you know of startups that would make for interesting presenters to an audience of kids, teens and families, please send your suggestion to events [at] siliconglades [dot] com.

This report was posted by a volunteer from SiliconGlades, an innovation firm that designs hyperlocal social impact programs such as AlligatorZone.  Don’t you love jargon?  Let’s rephrase that:  SiliconGlades designs programs that bring your community together for a common uplifting purpose, right in your neighborhood.