Tag: Highschool

January 13, 2015

AlligatorZone, the free public program where kids meet cool startups held its 8th session in Tampa Bay last Saturday (January 10, 2015), the first in the year 2015.  We expect 2015 to be an interesting year for a few reasons.  The first ever AlligatorZone session was launched in June 2014.  We have learned a lot since that day.  After showcasing 24 startups to kids in Florida and Silicon Valley in 12 successful sessions of AlligatorZone (including one held in Miami in September 2013 but was not publicized at the request of an elementary school for whose students it was held as part of their field-trip), the program has been gaining a robust following with libraries in more and more communities eager to host AlligatorZone.  Soon to be added to this list, is an awesome library in the Greater Philadelphia area.  Stay tuned and watch for updates at http://www.twitter.com/alligatorzone

Meanwhile, let’s look for lessons learned at AlligatorZone in Tampa Bay last Saturday, in the form of this picture-essay.

We decided to keep most things consistent to allow AlligatorZone to bloom in Tampa Bay.  The one thing we are still keeping variable is the timing.  AlligatorZone in Tampa Bay was held at the Jan Kaminis Platt Library in South Tampa in their open space.

As you can see in the picture above, the library’s open space has cozy seats for children to gather around the startup founder who’s presenting.  The open nature of the space allows for curious patrons who are passersby to linger and stay if they find the proceedings interesting.  We haven’t seen anyone who stops by not grab a chair and stay to listen and, often to participate in the discussion.

Pictured above is a poster that we reuse.  It gets placed at the entrance to the library on the day of the event.  We are not sure if it serves any purpose because it’s hard to measure its effectiveness, especially when displayed prominently only on the day of the event.  In a library, there are several programs, so that is just the way it is.  At some point we hope to promote the program directly to parents of school-going children.

The first presenter was Mark Hembree, an experienced serial entrepreneur who sold two companies before starting Resell Solutions (check out www.resellsolutions.com).

The early morning timings on a Saturday seemed to work well in summer when we first launched AlligatorZone, however, based on the slow warm-up of the audiences trickling in on a Saturday morning during the hectic school-year, and based on some informal polls of parents who signed up but still couldn’t make it, we will be trying out a different time of the day on a Saturday (for Tampa Bay) next month.

Mark said after the session that the prep work for AlligatorZone in itself was very helpful, however, we hope to bring him back in front of more kids during another session of AlligatorZone in a different location.

Here are some observations about showcasing business-to-business (B2B) products at AlligatorZone.  To keep the audience of kids engaged, even a B2B product is great, provided a working product is on display for the kids to see and grasp.  The other aspect that startup founders seem to struggle with is not knowing if or how much they should simplify their messaging for the young audience.  In our view, not much.  Avoid the jargon but keep things matter-of-fact.  Kids understand a lot about the world of technology and business, and constantly surprise us at AlligatorZone.  Verdafero was a utility-consumption dashboard for use by businesses, and kids still had great input and engagement with the product because the founder Dr. Alastair Hood showed the product to the kids even as he was explaining it.  As we mentioned in an earlier post, there’s no script when talking to kids, and no other way to learn other than to endure some time in the AlligatorZone and listen to the kids asking whatever is on their mind.

The second presenter Wayne Rasenen was introduced by a 5th grader in the audience.  Wayne is the founder of in10did (see http://www.in10did.com) and the inventor of the product.  Kids are kinethetic, as pointed out by a previous presenter.

It wasn’t until Wayne pulled out the latest version of his product that the kids got really interested.  We have seen this over and over again; slideshows with words do not go far at an AlligatorZone.

As always, the parents in the audience stay very engaged along with their kids, and that is one of the things that makes AlligatorZone such a heart-warming program — it is a family-event.  In the picture above, a dad also participated in the discussion with the startup founder.

Kids had many questions and suggestions on what they thought would make the product cooler.  We believe that it pays to listen to the kids who, as my friend Sean Murphy pointed out, are after all, digital natives.

As with every session of AlligatorZone, whether big or small, we find it turns out to be a wholesome community gathering of the like-minded …

… and people are rarely in a rush to leave.

Some of the lessons learned from this session of AlligatorZone include:

We are indeed excited about the upcoming sessions of AlligatorZone.  A dedicated website is expected to be in place soon at AlligatorZone.org, so that visitors who are keen on learning how to participate can have all the information in one place.

Hope to see you soon at another session of AlligatorZone.  Check out the running calendar at http://AlligatorZone.eventbrite.com

PREVIOUS POSTS:

For your reading and viewing pleasure, here are links to previous articles about AlligatorZone, some of which also contain embedded videos:

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.  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, among other things, 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.

December 11, 2014.

AlligatorZone is where kids meet cool startups.  So far it has been held in library locations in cities such as Tampa Bay FL, Pinecrest (a suburb of Miami, FL), Sunnyvale CA, and Mountain View CA.  That’s where children are most comfortable, and a place that is associated with joyful learning.  This week on December 8, 2014, we tested out a new library location for AlligatorZone in Tampa Bay Area.  The Seminole Heights Branch Library reopened not too long ago after a $3.9 million renovation.  AlligatorZone was held in one of its glass walled meeting rooms.

Here’s another audio-visual report on the AlligatorZone session where startups Lilypad and Shootrac presented to a gathering of kids, teens and parents.  These reports tend to take an introspective approach as this AlligatorZone is a unique and new program with no script.  The kids define AlligatorZone’s evolution.  That’s how we like it.

A teenage member of the audience introduces the first presenter of the evening, Eric Rabinovitz, founder & CEO of Lilypad (http://www.lilypad.co), which is a software for spread-out teams that are far away and out in the field to come together in a fun environment online – or in business-speak, a gamified collaborative work-space for distributed and field workforce.

More kids joined the audience a little later, but Eric was kind enough to start over so that they knew what he was talking about.

Kids and teens in the audience were able to relate to it using metaphors of school teams and school project work, and seemed to really enjoy knowing about the use of such tools by grown-ups in a business environment.

More questions and suggestions poured in once the kids were able to understand that this was a tool to get some healthy competition going between teams and team-members in a business, to improve the overall productivity of the organization.

Eric paid attention to all the questions and suggestions from the kids, and also made himself available for later by staying back for the rest of the evening.

It was time for the next presenter. Omar Garcia, founder and CEO of Shootrac, a software for businesses to keep track of their assets

One of the younger members of the audience introduces Omar Garcia to everyone, and his presentation begins.

AlligatorZone sessions are highly interactive, and the kids’ opinions are valued.  The sessions also turn out to be a time for parents to interact with their kids as well as with the startup founders.

Omar invites the youth in the audience to test-drive the Shootrac product with their iphones.

AlligatorZone, is an inspiring and uplifting family-event, and the vibe is unlike any other startup-related event.  All the while, the entrepreneurs learn a lot from these digital natives.  Startup founders often bring their own families along to sit in, and interact with the other members of the audience.

All the rules that apply to story-time in a library typically apply to AlligatorZone.  After all, the startup founders are also story-tellers.

After every session of AlligatorZone we notice the people like to hang out and talk to the entrepreneurs. Lilypad’s Eric Rabinovitz is seen above enjoying a conversation with a youth from the audience.

Other families gather around Shootrac’s Omar Garcia.

AlligatorZone sessions allow a community to celebrate local entrepreneurs.

We got great feedback from a dad (http://youtu.be/V1XJYP9t1DI) and a mom in the audience (http://youtu.be/TspLewFYg6Q).

The takeaway from this session of AlligatorZone was that it simply can’t be scripted, so there’s no way to ‘coach’ a presenter to talk about a startup to children and teens.

Here’s a video of feedback from the presenters, Eric Rabinovitz of Lilypad (see http://youtu.be/GQrgYEhY274) and Omar Garcia of Shootrac (see http://youtu.be/jih523Y–ts)

  Hope to see you soon at another session of AlligatorZone.  Check out the running calendar at http://AlligatorZone.eventbrite.com

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.  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, among other things, 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.

AlligatorZone, is the free program where kids meet cool startups.  The one thing that startup founders worry about is showing their product before it is perfect in their own minds. We would like to address that in this blog post.  This introspective approach to recording each AlligatorZone session’s lessons helps us to arrive at the ideal set of criteria to curate the startups presenting at each session.

Our presenters this week were the founders of Mentorem and LetTheWorldJudge.com, respectively.

At today’s AlligatorZone, we encouraged the startup founders to show their beta site to our audience of youngsters and families.  While its true that showing slideshows with words is not ideal for this audience, and to most audiences, when story-telling is combined with images and the opportunity to look at what the entrepreneur is describing, it helps the kids and teens and the families to provide better feedback.  It also keeps them engaged.

Mentorem founder Hoang Nguyen kept the audience very engaged by demonstrating a deep understanding of the studying methods currently used by school-aged children.  However, we realized that it would make for a richer conversation if he actually showed them the software that he and his team have been developing.

The second speaker was Cornell Wilder, Founding Owner and CEO of LetTheWorldJudge.com.  Cornell was able to explain the concept of his business with real-world examples of civil lawsuits, although a working prototype was not ready for the audience members to play with.  Regardless, Cornell was very successful in simplifying the message, while the questions for the kids and the suggestion from one of the parents about positioning the startup’s offering gave him and his team some food for thought as they prepare for the commercial launch.

Here are some more pictures for your enjoyment.

Cornell Wilder, Founding Owner/CEO of LetTheWorldJudge.com and, Hoang Nguyen of Mentorem strike a conversation as families start gathering for yet another session of AlligatorZone at the Jan PLatt Library in South Tampa on November 8, 2014.

Librarian Laura Doyle of Hillsborough County talk to kids who have just arrived to attend AlligatorZone.  Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative has been a great ally in this endeavor, providing space and promotional support.

There’s something special about using the library as a venue of choice for AlligatorZone – it is not intimidating for the children.

The session begins with Hoang Nguyen, founder of Mentorem explaining about his startup’s offering.

Notice the photographer on the left?  That’s the founder of CadeLancaster Photography, a high-school freshman who has started his own photography business, covering AlligatorZone through his lens.

Even he couldn’t help chiming in with some insights and questions.

Parents added to the conversation and provided further insights.

We encouraged the founder to show the audience his beta version, and he obliged.

At which point, at least one of the kids sought solace in his book after opining that another website gives “so many rewards” to users.  Tough crowd!

After the entire session was over, Hoang Nguyen received more feedback from one of the parents …

… and from the kids.  Startup founders really benefit when they care to pay attention to, and listen to the kids in the audience, because kids are after all “digital natives” (to quote Sean Murphy who attended the Sunnyvale debut of AlligatorZone).

The second presenter of the session was Cornell Wilder, Founding Owner/CEO of LetTheWorldJudge.com.  His topic resonated with the audience as well.

The kids had many questions for Cornell and he took the time to answer each of them, while his Pearl from his team recorded the entire session on her iPad.  AlligatorZone sessions are known to provide eye-opening moments and wisdom to the founders of startups.

Cornell Wilder of LetTheWorldJudge.com explains his business model to a 6th grader who asked how his company will make money.

Questions from a 5th grade girl in the audience, led to some interesting suggestions from one of the parents on the positioning of the business that gave the founder some serious food for thought.

Another incredibly successful session of AlligatorZone concluded with still more questions to be answered.

We’ll soon have videos of the presenting startup founders’ impressions of AlligatorZone.  In our quest to find the best time and location for parents to be able to bring their kids to this exciting learning opportunity, we are going to be trying the Seminole Heights Library on a Monday evening, December 8th, 2014.  Hope to see you soon at another session of AlligatorZone.  Check out the running calendar at http://AlligatorZone.eventbrite.com

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, among other things, 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.

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.