I just realized that I almost did the same thing this year. After riding the StartupBus and enjoying a crazy SXSW, I spent a week in Miami to check out their startup scene.

If “Miami” and “startup” are words that you would not put together, you should definitely change your mind. There is a tech scene in south Florida, and all the elements are falling to place to become a successful hub for South West US and Latin America.

The beach a block away from my hostel

I want to take the opportunity with this blog post to showcase some of the great startups I met there.

Senzari

One of the biggest players of the local community, Senzari, has a team working on a new product they just launched: MusicGraph. MusicGraph is at the core of their other product, WahWah radio.

It’s a graph API (just like Facebook graph) around music. One of the most interesting features of the API is the recommendation engine. You could integrate in your app something as powerful as the Spotify recommendation engine just by calling the API. They also provide you all the social information of an artist. If you are building a service around music, you definitively should check what MusicGraph is doing. MusicGraph

Kairos

During my first hackathon ever, back in 2011, I built an app using the awesome Face.com API. They later got acquired by Facebook and the facial recognition API seat was empty for a while, until Kairos came into the game. The API is the second product they launched after Kairos TimeClock, an iPad-base timeclock that uses facial recognition to identify employees. Possibilities are end-less, retailers could build loyalty programs, photo apps could use it to identify people… It’s simple and easy to hack, take a look at Kairos, an alumni of NewME accelerator, a residential technology startup accelerator for businesses led by underrepresented groups (African-Americans, Latinos, & Women) in the technology industry.

Flomio

I found Flomio on Angelist and I had a chance to meet one of their founders, Richard Grundy. They build tools and apps around NFC. For example, they help event organizers with NFC enabled wristbands. As soon as the wristband is registered and tagged to the readers in the venue, organizers could see who is “checking in” where and get analytics about their events. They also built a photo booth where it identifies people using the wristband and then posts the picture on the social network.

Could you image that they also raised $96,000 on Kickstarter to create the first NFC reader for iOS devices, Flojack out of Miami. We sat for almost an hour and talked about their vision and the difficulties of building a hardware startup in Miami. I am definitively looking forward for more to come from this team.

Not to mention Flomio is a Techstars alumni.

Muzik

I met the Muzik team at SXSW during Slashathon that we sponsored with 3scale. They built the first hackable headphones, and it’s just amazing ! The well designed bluetooth headphones are a concentration of high technology. It has a touch gesture surface so you can swipe to control volume and go through your playlist. 4 hotkeys could be programmed, like sending a tweet, it even has a accelerometer and proximity sensor to detect when you put the headset on your neck and pauses your music.

It’s been 2 weeks that I am using them everyday and I love it. They sync perfectly with Spotify on my Android phone. I am really excited to see what people could build with Muzik headphones. Feel free to take a look to the Muzik SDK.

There are a lot more interesting startups in Miami, just scroll down the list on AngelList and you will be amazed.

In another article I will tell you more about the first MIA Music Summit HackDay that was sponsored by 3scale.

Are you are building a startup in Miami? Tell me about it and I would love to take a look :)

Thanks to Kristine my awesome coworker for proof reading this article :)

Recently at 3scale, we had to re-build our customer page to make it more dynamic and easy to maintain. For now it was a classic Wordpress post, with html code in it. Really hard to maintain anytime we had to add a new customer or change its information.

As I was in charge of the project, I immediately thought about all the magic stuff I played around in Meteor. Stuff like dynamic view update when data changes in database and Handlebar Templating. But part of the requirements was to build something using Wordpress without using any iframe. Meteor apps were out of the game…

At that time an article about using Google Spreadsheet as a backend-system got a bit of hype, so we decided to try that. It has the advantage no not neccesitate any coding experience from the person maintaining the spreadsheet, perfect for this project.

To make the page dynamic and reactive we added Handlebar-like templating and Firebase support. In this article I want to walk you through a step-by-step tiny project so you could also use what’ve done.

Project idea

I am running a great conference soon : MemeCon, a conference about memes. I built a nice one-page website and want my assistant to update the agenda easily.

We let people submit they paper proposal using a Google form, and approved them manually so they could be added on the site.

What you need

• a single page website, I personally used a great template found on StartBootrap.com
• a Google Form and the response spreadsheet
• a Zapier account (Free tier is enough for the demo)
• a Firebase account (Free tier is enough for the demo)

Google Spreadsheet setup

On Google side, once you have configure the form you want, go to the corresponding response sheet (click View Responses).

There we will add a column named Accepted. If a submission is Accepted we will put YES in this column. To make it easier to maintain, let’s setup cells so it will only accept YES or NO as values.

Go to Data>Validation menu. In Criteriat select From list items and put YES, NO in the field and click OK. Once you have done that, you can copy the cell to all the column.

We should be done with Google Spreadsheet.

Firebase

Firebase is an amazing tool to build realtime applications and share the data with all the concurrent users. Here we are going to use it as a fasta backend infrastructure accesible in Javascript. We will only store accepted talks on Firebase.

Once your Firebase is activated, you will need to create an app. Your app will be accessible at YOURAPP.firebaseIO.com. Click your app name to access Firebase dashboard, called the Forge. That’s where you will your data getting created in real-time. You can also create and modify data manually.

Imagine the data stored as a tree, with roots and leafs. To organize our dataset we want to create a talks root. The best way is to great it under main root and add an empty leaf that you will delete after. To add or delete a node, hover on its name and either click + to add a child node or – to delete the node and its child.

You should have something like this at this point.

We are done with Firebase configuration now.

Zapier

To export data from Google Spreadsheet to Firebase I was too lazy to code and work with Google Webhooks so I found that Zapier will be a good intermediate to do that for me. If you are familiar with IFFT it’s a similar product with more options.

What the Zap will do: everytime a row in the spreadsheet it will add/update a record in Firebase.

1. Make a new Zap
2. Select Google Doc for the left service, with Updated Spreadsheet Row as a trigger.
3. Select Firebase for the right service, with Update/set record ID as a trigger your should have something like this :
4. On step 2 and 3 of the Zap creation, you will have to log on your Google and Firebase accounts, that should be pretty straight forward
5. On step 4, you select the spreasheet and the sheet where the responses are
6. We add a custom filter on Accepted column so text matches exactly YES to have only accepted submissions
7. At step 5 you setup the path as /talks/authorname/ so talks will be listed by their authorname under talks node fields to store part let you choose which information you want to store. It’s also useful to rename column name. Mine looks like this
8. You can test and name your Zap.

Your test should pass and add a record to Firebase. Check on the Firebase forge to see if it worked. A common problem is that Firebase does not like variable names with special character, and Google Spreadsheet column names are usually called gsx$columnname.

One solution,is to rename columns in the Fields to store part as described here

Website setup

Now that our data are stored on Firebase, we need to get them and display them on the page.

Template

As we are using a static HTML file we can’t use any Handlebar or Moustache templating system that need Node to precompile templates.

Instead I used a solution called Markup.js. Include it in your project like you will do with any other javascript file.

Somewhere in your page, where you want to display submissions add this piece of code

<div id="talks-list"></div>

Then add the end of the file add :

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<script id="talks-list-template" type="text/template">
      {{talks}}
          <div class="featurette" id="{{authorname}}">
            <img class="featurette-image img-circle img-responsive pull-left" src="{{imageurl}}" style="width: 200px;height:200px;">
            <h3 class="">{{title}}
                <span class="text-muted">by <a href="http://twitter.com/{{twitter}}">{{name}}</a></span>
            </h3>
            <p class="lead">
                {{description}}
            </p>
            <h4><span class="text-info">{{time}}</span></h4>
          </div>
      {{/talks}}
    </script>

First line initiate a template named talks-list-template

the {{talks}} ..{{/talks}} block corresponds to a forEach loop on an array talks, in this block each call to another “ THING will be related to the current object in the forEach loop.

For example, by calling {{authorname}} we get the authorame of the current talk oject contained in talks array.

Now we have to pass to this template the corresponding talks object.

Getting data

Add Firebase SDK to your project <script type='text/javascript' src='https://cdn.firebase.com/js/client/1.0.2/firebase.js'></script>

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$(document).ready(function(){
        console.log("READY");
        talks_array =[];
        var talksDB = new Firebase('https://YOURAPP.firebaseio.com/talks');
        talksDB.once('value', function(snapshot) {
          if(snapshot.val() === null) {
            alert('Error reading snapshot');
          } else {
            $.each(snapshot.val(), function(key,talk) {
                talks_array.push(talk);
            });
            talks_array = _.sortBy(talks_array,function(t){return t.time});
            var template = document.getElementById("talks-list-template").firstChild.textContent;
            var context = {
                talks: talks_array,
            }
            $("#talks-list").html(Mark.up(template, context));
            console.log("DONE");
          }
        });
    });

1. We initiate the talksDB object we the data available at https://YOURAPP.firebaseio.com/talks
2. We read the data once. in the case of a realtime app you will use on instead
3. Loop over the data to create an array
4. (optional)Sort the array by date (need underscorejs)
5. Search for template talks-list-template, initiate talks array with the one just created.
6. Apply in the div with id talks-list the template.

Usage

To try if your app is working well follow these steps: 1. submit info on your Google Form. 2. accept one submit 3. Run Zapier’s Zap manually 4. Check that the talk is added in Firebase Forge 5. Load your static html file

You should see your talk proposal listed. In production you will only need to update the Google Spreadsheet to update your website.

What could be improve

Zapier and Webhooks

If you are less lazy than myself you can find a way to go hover Zapier and hook google spreasheet directly to Firebase. Also, Zapier zaps are run every 15minutes on free tier, so it takes 15minutes to actually update your website. But if you run the zap manually it’s instant.

Security

By default you Firebase data are readable and writable by anybody. To change that you can go to http://YOURAPP.firebaseio.com in the Security tab and change ".write": true to ".write": false. Zapier will still be able to write into it, but not random users navigating on your website. More about Firebase Security

Host your whole app on Firebase

Recently Firebase launched a beta program to host static apps directly on their platform. Check the Documentation to learn more.

It might be a great way to deploy prototype, and gets all the perks of Firebase speed.

Now, it’s over, hosting is cool again with a lot of new players in the game. I just found a new one that I have not heard of before and it look legit.

To be honest, I really did not take care of my personal hosting for the last years. Once I found a deal to get unlimited hosting for $50/year, on pronethosting, everything worked fine. At that time I only needed PHP and MySQL with FTP access to run my blog. Then they got acquired by another hosting company CoolHandle, and increased their price, to $100 a year. It was still fine with me. But recently I had couple of problem (DNS changes without notice, access to dashboard,…). After 5 years, I am ready to move and find a professional company to host my site for a decent price.

WebFaction seems to be ideal for that.

Who is WebFaction

The worst you want to do with your code is to give it to an untrust person. WebFaction was created in 2003 under the name python-hosting.com, they used to host only Python applications and got quite popular in the community. They were hosting thousands of open-source python projects, and years after years kept improving their offer. They added SVN repo hosting, Django support and many other stuff.

Python-hosting is now WebFaction and they claim to host 250 000 apps, with datacenters in US, Europe and Asia. Ruby and PHP apps can now be hosted on their platform. Everything cool could be done there :)

For Developers by Developers

Developers tend to wish to have control of their machine. And WebFaction team totally understood that, they come from the same world as their customers.

I used to be super lazy, and scared of SSH. At that time, I would have had prefered FTP with a visual interface over SSH in a shell. I found myself safe whenever I had to deal with cPanel dashboard instead of configuring manually each services…

Now, that I gained experience in development and ops, I definitively prefer to have control on machines.

WebFaction suits definitively this need. If you deal with cloud computing on everyday job you won’t be lost, you are surrounded by a environement you already know. It’s one of the best shared hosting provider with the last up-to-date software.

Their simple dashboard lets you setup the high-level features to manage emails, domains or databases. The rest could be done directly in a shell on a SSH session. You are the master onboard. And for only $8.50 a month, that’s the best you could expect ! Even cheaper than Amazon EC2 or Heroku !

Unfortunately I could not quit my actual hoster, until this summer. But I will definitively start my future projects on WebFaction.

If you are not confident paying without testing they even have a trial tier.

I am looking for hearing from your experience using WebFaction. Happy Coding !

The StartupBus

As you may have read in my previous post I took the StartupBus to go to Austin. We left San Francisco, CA on Tuesday in the early morning to arrive Austin, TX on Friday evening.

Day 1

We were all supposed to meet at the StartupHouse at 6 am to pack our stuff and start the journey to Austin. I had a really time to wake up, I barely spelt the weekend before, I was at another hackathon where we’ve build a tip planner called EasyMapr. Apparently some other Buspreneurs attended the same Hackathon, so we were all on the same page in terms of hours of sleep. But ready to rock !

Josh, our conductor organized hackathons and a launch party the week before our departure but I was not able to attend. So I did not know anybody. It’s part of the magic of the StartupBus adventure ;)

While we were meeting each other prior to departure we were surrounded by cameras from TechCrunch and another special guest : Mr. Robert Scoble in person.

For those who don’t’ know Robert Scoble, he is working for Rackspace (a hosting company) and helps startups to get traction thanks to interviews and blog posts on his high-traffic Blog. He is sometimes solicited to be a judge or an advisor during startup competitions. He was on the bus with us until we stopped in Santa Monica. It was a chance for us to have him onboard to receive quick feedbacks about what we were building.

We had a long way to ride to Austin, but thanks to the sponsor of the Sillicon Valley bus, Elance we had a nice breakfast at their place. We also met Buspreneurs from the Stanford bus. On our way to Elance we all present ourselves in the bus. I was really impressed by the variety of skillsets and by all the talented people. Most of my Buspreneurs fellows were working in a startup or already create one/many. It was also a nice international crowd with several Australians, a German and a French (myself).

After our nice breakfast it was time for us to ride to Los Angeles. As soon as we get onboard we started the pitch session.

Everybody had 1min to explain his project and vision. I think that we all pitched something. They were ideas like a StartTrek alarm clock that gives you a summary of your day in the morning, or a website to create your own cereals and many others.

I pitched the idea for a Taxi-sharing service, where people can split the taxi bill by sharing a cab with somebody that’s going somewhere around the place you are going to. Like most of us I was not strongly attached to my idea and I was very open to work on someone else project.

At the end of the pitches (~40 pitches) we stopped to form groups and start working.

Most of the groups were formed pretty quickly, and 6 projects really emerged after the stop.

StartupBus Silicon Valley projects:

Beeliner - Find which events the people you want to meet are attending Cerealize - Your custom cereals delivered at your door. Expensiev - Expenses tracking for freelancers Gaggle - mobile app that filters your social feeds to only people you care about in that instan HipType - Dynamic content for iBooks Author, analytics and social media integration Kinetic.ly - Tools for motion analysis

As soon as we went back on the bus we were all ready to brainstorm and work on our on projects. By the end of the day we had to stop in Santa Monica to do quick Customer validation survey on the street, so we better have a good idea of our product by that time.

I joined to the team Cerealize because I was very excited by the quick brainstorm we had when we were forming teams. I did not know before that cereals were a big deal in America. That helped me to understand to full potential of this project, much bigger than what I thought during the pitch session.

The video of the first day thanks to John from TechCrunch

To be honest I am not yet on the Bus, it’s just a matter of time now. In 6 hours I will be seating on THE bus, THE StartupBus departing from San Francisco to go to Austin for SXSWi. I think I have not realized yet that I will part of this crazy adventure.

For those who have not heard of StartupBus and SXSWi before let me try to explain.

SXSWi

Helds in Austin Texas, SXSW is a global festival. SXSW stands for South by SouthWest and the little i is for interactive. It started in 1987 as a music festival and then they add music and more recently an interactive track for emerging new technology stuff. It happens every year in Austin and it is always bigger and bigger in terms of number of attendees and performances :)

From a tech point of view it is the place to be if you are part of this world. During 4 days, all the most important guys on earth that are building the Web/App/Mobile world will be there. Either by being speaking in one of the many panels of the official track or by throwing other events in the city.

It is the place to go for grown startups who want to promote their product and new features but for sure it is really the place to be for new startup that need traction and press.

I think that all the web entrepreneurs in the world have a “SXSW Launch plan” in their mind. There is a lot of competitions to get the attention of the early-adopters techie attendees, and only few happy ending stories. Examples ? in 2007 Twitter get a lot of early traction event if they did not launch there, Foursquare launched a SXSWi in 2009 or FoodSpotting in 2010.

This year everybody will be looking around for the next big thing. And for short period the most popular pickup line will be “I was using blabla before it was cool at SXSW”. Early adopters have a though life ;)

I planned to install at least a dozen of new apps on my ipad, and sign up to a bunch of other websites. I heard so many thing about this festival, I am really excited about it. For a wannabe entrepreneur its all the fairy that I kid could have in Disneyland.

And to add more fun and WOWness to this adventure I will be joining the Silicon Valley StartupBus.

The idea of the StartupBus started with a friend joke between Australian guys : roadtrip to SF with friend with the challenge of building a startup in the same time. The first StartupBus trip went to SF to Austin in 2010 on a bus with wifi. At Austin six projects were pitched to local investors. In 2011 Chicago, Clevevand, NYC and Miami joined the movement. For 2012 11 buses will travel across US and Mexico to get to Austin with entrepreneurs on board.

Or should I say Buspreneurs :) Buspreneurs are a mix of business guys and coders who have cool ideas about ways to make the world better.

They all have 3-4 days to make those ideas real project and viable businesses. When buses arrive in Austin it is time to meet other Buspreneurs, the next two days will be semi-finals and finals between all the buses. I just know the basic elevator pitch about the StartupBus, the rest will be the experience itself and I will find about it pretty soon :)

As a hacker and a Hackathon addict I am really excited. It’s all about building a real business and not only a hack to have fun with a cool API.

I am sure I will learn a lot of stuff from the people that I will meet during this trip.

Let’s get started ! Few hours away to a big step to the unknown ;)

PS: get ready to get spammed on your Twitter Timeline with #sxsw if you are not there tweet with #notatsxsw ;)

PSS: check http://startupbus.com as often as you can ;)

After being a part of DitchTheTourBus project in November 2010 during Startup Weekend Twin Cities and attenting the Mega SW in Mountain View, CA couple of months ago; I decided to help and join the SW bay team to make these events happen.

It’s a really interesting experience to be on the other side. You can help teams to go on the right path and be focused on key points. My ultimate goal is to bring Startup Weekend in the East part of France, where there is (beside of Strasbourg) a lack of this kind of events.

So during the weekend I tried my best to help teams, especially teams that did not have enough time to work on app to demo or to build a website. I shared with them couple of wireframing tools like Balsamiq, Mockingbird or Mockflow.

But I also tried to make the part 2 of a previous article I wrote on my blog couple of months ago.

This article should help StartupWeekend teams but also small startups to create an easy nice-looking website/launch page in less than an hour. You can find the first part of the article about which tools we are going to use here : create a startup webpage in less than 1 hour - tools

The second part is contains in this screencast that shows all the different steps to create your launch page.

Check it out :) And let me know what you think about it, feel free to ask any questions in the comment section :)

HOWTO - Create a landing page for your Startup ! from Nicolas Grenie on Vimeo.

Big shout out to Amed and John who are the main organizators of SW in the Bay, also to AT&T guys, SW attendees, and other facilitators ! :)

Give me an A ! Give me a P ! Give me an I ! API power !!

If that sounds like a cheerleader’s song, it’s totally on purpose. “API” is the new buzzworld in the tech world, with lot of fans and gurus. And you better join them now, if you don’t want to be left behind.

What is an API ?

API stands for ”Application programming interface” which means in a more understandable English : A hook to access a company’s data/website/technology and use it in your own application. A good way to not re-invent the wheel and to sync up with other services.

Who provide APIs?

As a website you want to have as much user as you can because users means business and money (not only, we agree :P) . If you have an API you will let others create their own applications on top of yours based on the datas you are willing to share.

For example you can use Facebook Connect platform and let your users authenticate themself throw they Facebook identity. On your side it is simpler, you get all the data directly from Facebook, no more boring form asking basic informations. From a user perspective it also easier and very smooth, one account to rule them all.

Big players on API :

Facebook

Twitter

Google Map

Youtube

Linkedin

Klout …

Why APIs are that big ?

Nowadays you could not think about creating an innovative startup without using somebody’s else API. As we said before you do not need to re-invent the wheel, somebody else did it before you. It saves you time, money and let you focus on bigger challenges.

You need a video-chat system ? use OpenTok. You need to send SMS ? use Twilio. And so on… It no more “there is an app for that” but ”there is an API for that”.

APIs are a good way to share/sell your technology and your data with others and make revenues out of it.

How to find the right API ?

With this growing market there is a lot of places to find the API that meets your needs. You check APIs providers like Mashery or 3Scale, they help companies to maintain their API documention and servers. There are also API directories like ProgrammableWeb or Mashape. There is alo Apigee where you can debug APIs in a console.

Now that you know a bit more about APIs, it’s time to code ;)

Go to hackathons and meet engineers that are building those awesome stuff.

Having a website is cool, having a social website is better :) SEO is not the only way to drive traffic to your website anymore, you need a social presence to get more people coming on your site. If are looking for an easy way to make your website social you can use services like AddThis, with a small line of javascript, your users will be able to share your website on main social networks.

That’s super easy but you might be the kind of person who likes to manage everything and want to code your own stuff.

Implementing a like button is also super simple go on this page http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/

And get the code you need to implement to have a nice-looking Like button :)

Recently Facebook add a comment functionality but you may want to disable it. Add these few lines of CSS and the comment box won’t show up :

[CSS]
.fb_edge_widget_with_comment{
  position: absolute;
}

.fb_edge_widget_with_comment span.fb_edge_comment_widget iframe.fb_ltr {
  display: none !important;
}

Now you have old-style like button without a comment box :) Have fun “hacking” Facebook :)

If you are part of the geek crowd you understood that I was talking about Hackathons.

For those who don’t know what what is it, let’s make it easy :

Hackathon = Hack + athon = Hack marathon

Hack ? Wooo… like Hackers ? Cracking credit card, launching NASA spaceship or changing traffic lights ?

No, nothing like that. It is about Hacking but in a good way. People are building awesome products to solve problems or just for the fun of programming.

This kind of events is very tech oriented, so if you are not a programmer it could be hard to attend. People are coming to work on their projects or to build new stuff during the event depends on the kind of event.

Since I moved to San Francisco I already attend to two different Hackathons. The first one was the HAPIHack weekend organized by OpenTok at their place. The principle was to create an application using at least one API from the sponsors. At the end of weekend, teams presented their work and a winner per API was designate to win the prize.

During this HAPIHack I work with a Spanish mate (Ignacio) on an application called FaceRate. FaceRate lets you take a picture of yourself to express your thought about a content (Video, Picture, text…), it is more powerful and meaningful than just a “like” or a “+1”.

We used Embed.ly API to display a content (215 types of content available), OpenTok API to take the picture and Face.com API to analyse your facial expression.

If you would like to try a live demo it’s here (might be a bit buggy) : http://facerate.cloudfoundry.com/

The googledoc prez :

And the Github repository if you want to fork it. FaceRate on Github

It was a really nice adventure to work on a new project with somebody I did not know before. He initiate me to Play framework that uses Java to build web applications and we were able to win two prizes, an Apple TV from embed.ly and a JamBox from Face.com.

Hackathons are really a good time to meet people like you (coders), talk about technique, learn new APIs and tech stuff, be efficient (you need a result by the end of the weekend)…

This weekend I attend to the SuperHappyDevHouse at the HackerDojo in Mountain View, it was an afternoon+night Hackathon but without competitions or prizes. It was just for the sick of being with others instead of coding in your cave or at a coffee shop.

Special mentions to Localno.de that lets you share your localhost application easily (helpful in dev mode) and to for a 100% HTML5 amazing tower defense game.

Hackathons are the new trend around here with at least one every week. It a signs that tech people also need their events to meet others of their kind, so open your eyes more are coming ! Companies also need Hackathons where rockstars (#buzzword) developers will be able to see the limit of the API or ask for new features. And Hackers can help APIs providers in their development process.

So if you are a coder or a student who is learning Computer Science you should definetly attend to the next Hackathon around you, meet others geeks, eat pizza and code :)

PS : companies love if you hacked their API before applying for a job

Next Hackathons in the Valley :

10-11 Sept. Techcrunch Disrupt Hackathon

10-11 Sept. Cleanweb Hackathon about energy and environment

In Paris and other cities :

17 Sept. Global Foursquare API Hackathon

Unfortunately this post was not reviewed by a English native speaker, so if you read something grammatically chocking please send me an email me @@ nicolasgrenie.com

It is kind of a dream come true when you recognized the logo/name of a product you use everyday. At that time I was not looking for an internship yet, but was very excited by the concentration of startups and high-tech companies. At the end of our journey I was sure that I want to come back in SF.

And I came back :) Last march I came for a week, to attend the Web 2.0 Expo. It was during my Spring break, and instead of getting drunk with hot babes in Cancun I decided to push myself to attend this professionnal conference. I was already interested and curious about the new startupmania, social media, SoMoLo (#buzzword :D) scene but I had to see it to be sure that I want to be part of it.

Attending the Web 2.0 Expo was the best decision I have made, because now I am interning in the Engineering team of ifeelgoods.com (winner of Web2.0 Expo Startup Showcase 2011) and I have a larger vision of what’s happening on the Web.

In October there will be the Web 2.0 Expo NY and I would like to share with you guys 3 reasons why you should attend, specially if you are student.

1. Trending topics and trending people

Talks, sessions and workshop are about what is happening now in the Internet world. You will hear experts in their domain about their experience. They are people who are making the Internet of today. I remember for example an interisting panel about pivoting with Kevin Systrom (founder of Instagram), it was just couple of weeks after their raised $7M.

The crowd of attendees is also made of great people, for example I’ve met the VP products of ICQ, engineers from Viadeo or someone from UberMedia. You will be impressed by the quality of these people and their availability. It’s a chance for you and your business !

2. Not only g33ks, not only bu$ine$$

You might be studying Computer Science or Business and really love that, but please stop being a nerd in your own field ! Go out and meet others, understand what others are doing. If you are the kind of kind who can understand and talk with both sides, you earn points on a resume pile.

Web 2.0 is great opportunity to understand the other side, you can attend sessions in Technical track or Business track and go back and forth between the two. Plus, sessions are very understandable even if you do not have a PhD in Computer Science or Business. No reason to be close-minded !

3. You learn more in one week than in a year of school

Kind of an evidence : it is too recent to be taught in schools.

I am wondering which kind of prof will be able to tell you more on OpenGraph, Ruby on Rails, or mobile devices economy than people who are using/making this technology everyday. You learn few things in school, but don’t forget that you have to learn the rest by yourself ;)

By attending this kind of conference you also prove to others that you are more than a basic good student. During social events (usually more than one every day) you will be able to improve your communication skills, work on your personal elevator pitch, and build your network.

Career fairs are something awful for students and not really a good place to show to recruiters your personality : you are just one student out of the 1000 others who stopped at their booth during the day. During conferences, there are few students, you are the exception, for once :) .

Beside talks you also have many other events in the city related or not with the Expo, plus some companies in the Expo hall, don’t miss that ;)

I am sure Web2.0 NY does not have the same “taste” because it is not in the Valley, but it still a great conference with interesting sessions and people. And I bet NYC is a nice city too, even if I never been…

For students you can have a 65% discount so it’s very interesting if you live in a hostel and take a low-cost flight, it might be cheaper than visit your parents or going to Cancun ;) Code: webny11fts

For others you can have a 20% off with this code : WEBNY11RF9

Enjoy !

Unfortunately this post was not reviewed by a English native speaker, so if you read something grammatically chocking please send me an email me @@ nicolasgrenie.com

Ayant fini mon semestre depuis plusieurs semaines je suis libéré de toute contrainte scolaire, j’essayerais d’être donc plus présent sur ce blog et d’aborder régulièrement les différents aspects de mon expérience américaine.

Évidemment l’exercice n’est pas forcément évident. On ne résume pas un an en 20 lignes, c’est pour çela que j’en appelle à vous, lecteurs, qui m’ont suivi (ou non) sur le blog, Twitter ou Facebook pour savoir qu’est-ce qui pourrait vous intéresser. Qu’aimeriez-vous connaître ou comprendre de la vie sur un campus américain ? Du monde informatique US ? Des relations sociales ? De l’esprit d’entreprendre ?

Vos questions seront pour moi sources d’inspiration dans la rédaction d’un prochain article.

Pour l’actualité récente, la bêta de DitchTheTourBus pointera bientôt le bout de son nez, j’irais le 9 juin prochain à un ApéroEntrepreneurs à Paris et participerais certainement à quelques trucs à la Cantine dans le mois de juin. Il faudra que je vous parle également du lancement en alpha d’Onligence par un compère Alsacien rencontré à la Web 2.0 Expo à SF en février.

Des projets et des idées, tout pleins de choses pour une nouvelle dynamique et faire de ce retour en France une réussite.

J’attends vos questions sur twitter ou dans les comments ;)

Bonus rétro :

On va se faire un petit post en français pour changer. Enfin c’est surtout que je suis pris d’un sentiment de flémingite aiguë pour me concentrer et rédiger en anglais. Je suis donc arrivé à San Francisco jeudi dernier, directement depuis la neige de Minneapolis au climat humide et légèrement pluvieux de la Californie. Qu’elle libération ! Bien que je fusse en vacances (officiellement jusqu’à ce soir) c’est bel et bien dans un esprit “business” et “professionnel” que je me rends dans la Sillicon Valley. Évidemment l’objectif ultime est de décrocher un stage dans cette mégapole de geeks. Mais je viens également dans l’envie d’en apprendre plus sur cette “startup-mania”, cet esprit d’entreprendre et plus généralement cette envie d’avoir envie qui nous fait défaut en France. Pour me confronter à ce monde-là j’ai décidé d’assister à mon premier congrès professionnel : la Web 2.0 Expo. C’est une des plus grosses conférences américaines à propos du monde des réseaux sociaux, et du web d’aujourd’hui. Si vous voulez un aperçu du web 2.0 je vous propose cette formidable intervention de Frédéric Lefebvre :

Effectivement ça ne veut pas dire grand-chose… le web 2.0 c’est tout et rien à la fois, c’est aujourd’hui comme c’est hier… ou alors on se dit juste que c’est le nom de la conf et basta :P

Pendant ces 4 jours de congrès j’essayerais de jongler entre confs techniques et celle orientée business, tout en essayant évidemment de rencontrer de nouvelles personnes et d’en connaître un peu plus sur les tendances actuelles.

Je suis très enthousiaste à l’idée d’assister à tout ça, mais surtout d’aller au Moscone center ! LE temple des WWDC d’Apple… mon rêve de gamin de 10ans, même si ce n’est pas pour une conférence des développeurs Apple. Pour une prochaine fois :)

Je vous laisse il me reste à planifier mon planning de demain, je pense m’orienter vers l’atelier sur toute une journée à propos de Ruby On Rails :)

Je vais essayer de maintenir le contact ici et d’écrire autant que possible mais rien ne sera évident avec toutes choses à faire !

Lien : Web 2.0 expo 2011 Mon projet de startup DitchTheTourBus

Who you should read this article : if you are in a StartupWeekend, if you are building your startup and don’t want to spend to much time on the website, if you have a startup idea and want to get known or if you are curious :)

Why you should not read this article : if you think that ninjas are better

As a new startup you will need a custom domain name with a hosting space, a landing page to invite future users to sign-up for a beta, a blog and a Twitter account.

1. Host your website and buy a custom domain name

You have many offers to host your website and get your own domain name, you can pick the one you prefer. Following this tutorial you will not need a lot of space but think one step further to when you will need space for you real website. I personally recommend CoolHandle because they have a $5/mo offer with unlimited space and bandwith, their support his amazing (they always replied in less than 24hours), they give a FREE domain with any hosting plan, plus they have a built-in option for one of the services we will use.

Get UNLIMITED Web Hosting Now

To get $50 off on Coolhandle offers use the code : zc06956

Once you have you have your own .com and hosting plan you can go to the next step.

2. Create an account on a wonderful blog platform

Blog platform ? Really ? Yes ! It is not like Blogger or Skyblog which are for teenagers ; do not worry! We will use Posterous, which is the new fashion in blog platforms for startups. It is very understandable when you see how easy it is to post on the blog. Posterous is very powerful; you can post just by sending an email, and that is very useful when you need your team to post on the blog. Another interesting feature is the connection with social networks. Posterous lets you update your Facebook page, your Twitter account, Reddit… automatically when you post something. It gains you a significant amount of time !

So sign-up here : Posterous

3. Create a Cloudflare account to manage your DNS

Cloudflare is a San Francisco based startup that permits you to speed up your website and protect it against spammers. It is very efficient : usually 65% faster. It is very easy and quick to configure with your domain, which we will see in the next part. It also permits you to manage your DNS as a professional. And everything is FREE ! You can upgrade your account to a pro account if free features are not enough.

If you have a CoolHandle account you can configure Cloudflare from your Cpanel otherwise we will see how to create and configure your account in the next part.

4. Ask for a LaunchRock invitation

LaunchRock is the new must-have for startups ! It is the winner of the StartupWeekend of Philadelphia. With LaunchRock you have a simple page where users will be able to sign-up to get early access to your website, and share a referral link on social networks. It is again easy to configure and you have nothing to do besides customize the page. It is super powerful to see which successful startups already use it : Zaarly, DitchTheTourBus, LaunchRock…

If you do not have an invite yet and you are attending a StartupWeekend, just email sw [@] launchrock.com and they will send you an early invite. If thiq is not your case you can still sign up on LaunchRock and wait for an invitation or email the team and explain your project.

5. Create your social network identity

That is the easiest step. You just have to create a Twitter account, a Facebook page, a Youtube account if you have videos, Foursquare, etc…

If you read this, that means you have hopefully completed the 5 previous steps and you have all the tools you need to create your startup webpage.

Let’s go to step 2 : Link all the tools together (coming soon)

Special Thanks to Kirsten Pertersen (St. Olaf 2011) who helped me with my english grammar

Having a one week break before the beginning of Spring semester is nice. Visiting DC during this break with friends is super cool. But the best part is attending a Techy networking event in DC while you are on break. That is what I did two weeks ago. It was the best way to kill two birds with one stone, visiting US’s capital and discovering DC’s tech scene. So before my journey I simply googled “DC”+”networking event” and in 3 more clicks I found TeckCocktail’s event. I booked my ticket, printed it and I was ready to go.

A new adventure for Frenchie :)

Of course the location of the bar(Slaviya) where the TechCocktail took place was not in my tiny tourist map. But I found it without difficulty after a 40 minute walk from the subway station. It was a nice and classy bar with demo tables all around it. I was there in advance but it became crowded quickly. It was time to meet people :) .

I was impressed to see how simple it was to meet people. I had no reason to feel uncomfortable, because people were so welcoming. You just have to take the first step and you can meet interesting people easily. It was a good opportunity to see that DC is not only a government city but also an entrepreneurial city with many good ideas.

I do not know if it is what we call the “American Dream”, but after this event I felt that everything is possible, you can a great idea and build it, and there is a community who can help you by giving you some advice and sharing their experiences.

The French tech scene is in expansion, and unfortunately I am not studing in a big city in France, but I hope we have events like TechCocktail to meet other entrepreneurs and demo products.

In my opinion it is the perfect place to be as a student. This kind of event helps you to develop your own entrepreneurial fiber and give you a showcase of what is going on around you. If you are a computer science major like me, that will broaden your mind on where you would like to work. Forget giants companies, your local tech scene has so much to offer ;)

Unfortunately good things come to an end; it was time for me to leave and go back to Minnesota for school. I will for sure attend another TechCocktail if I have the opportunity again.

PS : I add a new geek shirt to my collection :)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Special Thanks to Kirsten Pertersen (St. Olaf 2011) who helped me with my english grammar

For those who don’t know, Minnedemo is a conference where local startups from Minnesota present their products. They present it without any slides. That is where the strength of this conference is : demo only, no Powerpoint and blabla.

This time Minnedemo took place at Business University of St. Thomas in downtown Minneapolis. There were more than 300 attendees. Tickets sold out extremely quickly. I was luckyto have one. I reserved mine the day they announced the conference.

For sure Minnedemo was the place to be on the 13th of January. Many of the famous investors and entrepreneurs of the Twin Cities were there. It was a great opportunity to do some networking. For me, it was harder than during the StartupWeekend in November because it seemed like everybody knew each other, so it was harder to break the ice. But speaking about the quality of the buffet is always a good line to start a conversation :)

I won’t write in detail about each demo but just about my top 3 Sophia, Inveni and EventBurn.

Sophia is a new way to study online. The founders think that everybody can be a teacher, because we all know something. Based on this concept you will have the ability to create a class to explain something you understood. Let’s say you want to explain the Monte-Carlo’s method to compute an integral. In this class you will be able to add images, schemas or videos. Like this you can have an interactive course and not just a simple formula. It could be very useful if you don’t understand what your prof says in class, you may find another way to understand it in Sophia.

How to be sure that the lesson is scientifically true ? Sophia’s community is formed of students and experts. They have the ability to rate an article and suggest some improvements to the author. After a certain number of reviews by experts, the article will be certified. One of the advantage of Sophia is that you can ask the author questions on a kind of forum. So it is a mix between Wikipedia and Moodle, with a better interface and better user interaction. Sophia is still in beta but we should keep an eye on this startup :)

Inveni is a recommendation service for movies and TV shows. It will tell you what you should watch based on what you like. The concept was well summarized by its CEO : “We find you good crap and make sure you don’t watch crap”. I tried Inveni few days after Minnedemo. During the sign-up process it will ask you your top 5 movies, so you better know that top 5 before starting. I did not, I was just thinking of cartoons like Wall-E, Ice Age or Toy Story. Then it asks you to rate some movies if you already saw them. Because of my previous choice it asked me to rate all the episodes of Harry Potter. It was a bit strange to be assimilated with a HP’s fan. I watched the first one and slept during the 7th… You can spend hours rating all the movies it suggests you, I stopped after 40. It recommended cartoons for me… So I should rate other kind of movies if I really want a better suggestion.

One of the interesting features is the possibility to scan your Facebook, Twitter, Netflix or Rotten Tomatoes account and see what you said about movies you saw. So be careful when you want to be nice with your girlfriend with FB status like “So nice to watch Love Actually with you” when you like movies like American Pie, because Inveni will suggest you love movie :)

You also can have friends and see what they like, and what you may like in their list. It is possible for example to suggest a movie to a friend. Inveni is an interesting product with a strong algorithm and a nice interface. Unfortunately it does not include (yet ?) French movies, and I watch a lot of French movies. Plus I prefer to choose movies more spontaneously.

But I think we will hear about them very soon :) Recommendation websites are the current fashion on social networks.

The third demo that seduced me was EventBurn’s. It is a service for event organizers who would like to watch what people say about this event on social networks. It will give you the top link shared on Twitter or Facebook, or pictures on Flickr. You will also be able to see which user was the most active on Twitter, which tweet was retweeted the most and what the keywords were used. It is a good and a simple way to monitor the virtual identity of your event.

They made a special page for Minnedemo. I had the surprise to see that I was one of the most active user on Twitter :) EventBurn is still in beta test so they have a special $10/year offer for early adopters. Because I like the principle and I like the idea that being a beta-tester I signed up. Now I have a special page to follow my “personal brand” with my name and surname. I will see what the results will be.

EventBurn could be an interesting product to aggregate social network activity about your event. Plus the team is very friendly and open :)

It was a very nice conference for me and I am looking forward attending to the next one. I will attend to the next TechCocktail in DC on the 2nd of February =)

Videos of all the demos : http://tech.mn/news/2011/01/14/minnedemo-winter-2011/

Report in French

Special Thanks to Kirsten Pertersen (St. Olaf 2011) who helped with english grammar

Décrivons un peu l’ambiance tout d’abord : il faut s’imaginer une foule compacte de 300 personnes composée à 98% d’hommes qui enchaîne verre de vin sur bière le tout en se mettant quelques petits fours derrière la cravate. Cette petite foule plutôt ponctuelle est arrivée une heure avant le début des conférences. Le temps de networker et de faire un sort au buffet. La qualité du buffet donne l’idée de la population qui assiste à la conférence. Là où pour le StartupWeekend c’était à base de pizzas et de bagels synonyme d’une population geeky pas très portée sur la diététique, nous avions droit lors de la Minnedemo à un véritable buffet ! Vous auriez vu ces minis quiches et ses tartelettes ! La nourriture est certes un élément essentiel mais cela implique de manger avec distinction et de pas se salir les mains pour pouvoir serrer quelques pinces, à éviter donc si vous êtes un bâfreur. En revanche le ver de vin est semble-t-il un très bon “ice-breaker” littéralement “brise glace”.

J’étais un peu impressionné par cette foule, il m’a été plus difficile d’aborder les gens car ils semblaient tous se connaître en sachant exactement qui fait quoi. On s’est donc très rapidement retrouvé entre “Weekenders”, c’est-à-dire anciens participants au StartupWeekend. L’occasion de voir comment chacun avançait sur son projet.

Puis se fut le temps de rentrer dans le confortable amphi de l’université St. Thomas pour assister aux conférences. Comme je l’avais expliqué précédemment ici le principe est simple : une dizaine de startups en phase de lancement ont 7min pour convaincre les futurs partenaires ou investisseurs qui sont dans la salle le tout à base de démo de leur produit.

Le principe du “No powerpoint” est parfait ! On se concentre ainsi sur le projet et rien que le projet, rien d’autre ne parasite.

Un petit résumé des différentes démos que l’on a pu voir:

Inveni flirte sur la vague des sites de suggestions/recommandations pour vous permettre de trouver quel film regarder ce soir. Simplement : “We find you good crap and make sure you don’t watch crap” dixit le CEO, “On vous trouve des bons nanars à regarder et on s’assure que vous ne regardiez pas des navets”. Pour l’avoir essayé l’interface est plutôt cool. On s’inscrit facilement puis il nous demande nos 5 films préférés. Alors j’ai bien eu du mal donc j’ai bien dû mettre 4 dessins animés dont Wall-E et Ice Age. Après le site va essayer d’en savoir plus sur vous en vous proposant une liste de film en vous demandant de le noter si vous l’avez déjà vu. Certainement à base de système neuronal cela permet d’affiner les films qu’il vous proposera. J’ai bien été surpris car il m’a proposé tous les opus d’Harry Potter alors que j’ai bien dû en voir un seul en entier et les autres ayant un superbe pouvoir de somnifère. Pour constituer cette base vous pouvez lier vos comptes Facebook, Rotten Tomatoes, Netflix ou Twitter à Inveni et il va analyser ce que vous avez pu dire à propos d’un film à travers vos différents statuts. Alors attention aux trucs faux-cul du genre “trop bien Love Actually avec toi ma chérie” que vous avez posté sur Facebook il y a 1 mois alors que vous votre genre de film c’est plutôt les trucs genre Very Bad Trip…

Malheureusement ce site ne gère pas encore les films français. Je ne pense pas non plus être un utilisateur très assidu car je choisi plus mes films sur un coup de tête que sur des critiques. Cependant il sera intéressant de suivre l’avenir de cette startup vu que les systèmes de recommandation sont la tendance du moment.

Qonqr, le jeu géolocalisé dont j’avais déjà parlé là. La démo était la même que celle présenté au StartupWeekend. Une version WebKit, donc compatible iPhone/iPad est pourtant sortie alors que la première version avait été développée seulement pour les Windows Phone et le web en utilisant silverlight. J’ai vaguement un peu plus compris le principe même si je ne serais pas un joueur… Il faut prendre le contrôle de zones géographique en envoyant des nano-bots. À voir ce qu’ils ajouteront par la suite. En tout cas le buzz est déjà lancé il y a déjà pas mal de zones sous contrôles en dehors du Minnesota.

On a ensuite droit à une démo hardware, première dans le genre à une Minnedemo, le PassyPass. C’est un petit boîtier avec 4 boutons de saisie A, B, C, D et deux de contrôle User et Password. Développé par une geek apparemment connue sur la scène du hacking sous le nom de SigFLUP ce boîtier USB devrait vous permettre de ne plus avoir à vous rappeler tous vos mots de passe. Une sorte de 1Password en version hardware. C’est plutôt simple, vous allez sur votre site préféré pour changer votre mot de passe, une petite pression sur un bouton cela vous en génère un nouveau, vous associez ensuite une combinaison de lettres à ce site et voilà :) La prochaine fois il suffira de faire la combinaison de touche en question et cela vous logguera automatiquement. Outre l’aspect geek et DIY (do it yourself) à base d’interface sur vim je n’ai pas bien compris le principe… Car ça déplace un peu le problème il faudra toujours se rappeler quelle combinaison on a attribué à tel site.

Avec Zipnosis vous pouvez remballer vos fantasmes d’infirmière avec uniforme et stéthoscope… Car si le site vous propose de vous soigner ça sera en restant assis devant votre ordinateur. En gros c’est une consultation virtuelle chez le médecin. Évidemment ils ne vont pas remplacer les spécialistes qui ont besoin d’une consultation physique pour établir leur diagnostic mais ils veulent désengorger les hôpitaux américains et rendre le droit de soigner plus accessible. Pour obtenir une ordonnance il vous faudra répondre à plusieurs questions et payer 25€ à la fin. Vos réponses seront envoyées à un docteur de la clinique Park Nicollet partenaire du site, et après analyse il vous enverra une réponse personnalisée accompagnée d’une ordonnance comme un vrai médecin. L’interface est plutôt simple, là encore il y a du système neuronal derrière, apparemment le tout est développé avec Rails de l’aveu du fondateur. Ça semble une très bonne idée pour soigner tous les petits bobos. Surtout dans un pays comme les USA où la consultation frôle les 250$ à l’hôpital, ça fait cher le rhume. Cela permet donc également de permettre à plus de personne d’accéder à des soins. À suivre voir si ce genre de service débarque chez nous de ce que j’ai entendu ils sont déjà plusieurs aux USA.

Velvet games nous a présenté un jeu iPhone, je n’ai pas vraiment accroché mais le fondateur a séduit le public avec son humour. Le personnage du jeu portait un t-shirt Minnedemo et lors d’une quête il a gagné une épée et un costume en papier journal.

Evolve c’est un espèce de réseau social de gamer. Cela permet de trouver des gens qui jouent aux mêmes jeux que nous, de créer des guildes ou des clans. Ce qu’il propose c’est un système de “je wizze tous mes amis quand je veux faire une partie de CS”. Super pour tenter ceux qui tranquillement révisaient leur finaux. Une autre fonctionnalité permet de trouver des joueurs qui jouent au même jeu que vous et qui ont le même niveau. Parfait si vous en avez marre de mourir après la première seconde de jeu parce que vous avez atterri sur un serveur CS chinois. C’est cette dernière fonctionnalité qui me plaît bien, je ne suis pas un gros gamer mais je n’aime pas me faire fragguer sans avoir du fun de temps en temps.

EventBurn est un service qui vous permet de suivre l’impact d’un événement dans les réseaux sociaux. À partir de mots-clés le site va se mettre à “écouter” Facebook, Twitter et Flickr pour trouver les liens et photos qui sont les plus partagés sur ces réseaux. Vous aurez aussi des stats sur le nombre d’utilisateur qui parlent de vous, et une timeline. C’est plutôt simpliste mais c’est un bon agrégateur pour visionner rapidement ce qu’ils se passe. Ils ont créé une page pour le Minnedemo. Vous verrez également les tweet les plus retweeté (repris par d’autres personnes) ainsi que les mots clés les plus utilisés. Ça m’a permis de voir également que j’étais celui qui avait le plus twitté sur les 250 utilisateurs avec seulement 27 messages. Petite satisfaction :) Le produit me semble prometteur pour tous ceux qui gèrent des événements qui accueillent une communauté portée sur les réseaux sociaux. J’ai voulu tester eventburn en créant un compte pour suivre ma “marque personnelle” c’est-à-dire mon nom et mes pseudos. Voilà ce que ça donne http://www.eventburn.com/nicolasgrenie À suivre également, en plus l’équipe est très disponible pour répondre aux questions/suggestions.

Litliftt est un service d’aide à l’écriture pour les auteurs de romans qui se perdent dans leur imagination. Cela permet de créer par exemple un personnage et d’écrire toutes ses caractéristiques et de les stocker. Vous pourrez voir également à quelle fréquence son nom apparaît dans votre manuscrit. Une aide pour trouver que le Colonel Moutarde n’est pas très actif pour le moment il faudrait peut-être le faire intervenir, un meurtre par exemple, dans la cuisine avec un chandelier ça sonne pas mal. C’est plutôt simple et ça a été très vite adopté par une large communauté, tant le nombre d’écrivains en herbe est important. Le public a été séduit par le générateur de nom de personnage :)

Une des démos les plus intéressantes était celle de Sophia. Ils partent du principe que tout le monde détient la connaissance mais chacun à sa manière. Les développements limités vous ne captez rien ? Le prof explique et réexplique mais rien n’y fait ? Sophia est pour vous. Quelqu’un sera certainement déjà passé par là et aura compris. Il va tenter d’expliquer à sa manière. Tout cela à base de graphiques, d’images ou de vidéos. En plus vous pourrez poser des questions à l’auteur. Comment être sûr qu’il ne nous mène pas en bateau ? Il y a une communauté d’expert qui apporte conseils et expertise sur les articles dans leur domaine. C’est en quelque sorte un Wikipedia avec de nouvelles ressources, une validation d’expert et une discussion entre utilisateur. Très prometteur à mon avis avec encore beaucoup de potentiel, notamment du côté d’une éventuelle compatibilité Moodle.

Après tous ces super speech il fut temps de rentrer à l’hôtel et se reposer.

Ce fut une formidable expérience qui a renforcé chez moi l’envie d’entreprendre. Il y a tellement de bonnes idées et choses à faire ! Évidemment c’est une feuille de plus sur la pile des projets à réaliser mais assister à ce genre de conférence rebooste la motivation, c’est sûr ! Avis à tous mes collègues étudiants je vous encourage à participer à ce genre d’événement, ça vous donnera une autre vision de ce que vous voulez faire et de ce qui se fait actuellement.

Je prévois déjà d’assister au prochain TechCocktail de Washington DC. le 2 février prochain alors que je serais là bas en touriste :)

Vous pouvez voir toutes les démos en vidéo : http://tech.mn/news/2011/01/14/minnedemo-winter-2011/

Ou plutôt “Je réseaute, tu réseautes, nous réseautons”… Ou comment petit à petit je me transforme en un étudiant en recherche active de stage.

En tant qu’élève futur ingénieur informatique, et bientôt dans la fin de sa troisième année il me faut trouver le stage “technique” dit ST40 dans notre nomenclature bien à nous. L’idée est de mettre en pratique nos connaissances et/ou d’en apprendre de nouvelles, pendant 6 mois, au sein d’une équipe avec comme rôle d’épauler des ingénieurs.

Pour moi ce stage commencera en Septembre prochain et j’ai bon espoir de pouvoir le réaliser au pays de l’Oncle Sam :)

J’ai quelques mois devant moi pour trouver ce ST40. Mais prendre un peu d’avance dans la réflexion ne peut pas faire de mal.

C’est donc dans cette optique de prospection/réflexion que j’ai participé au Startup Weekend de Minneapolis au mois de novembre. Souvenez-vous j’en avais parlé ici. En bon procrastinateur je n’ai pas pris le temps de faire un billet-bilan. Ce fut une formidable expérience ! La seule envie qu’on a à la fin du week-end c’est d’appeler son papa et sa maman et de leur dire “j’arrête l’école”. Il y a tellement de gens à rencontrer, tellement de projets auxquels on voudrait participer, tellement d’idées que l’on a qui ne demandent qu’à être exploitées, tellement de tellement que ça en devient frustrant.

J’ai eu la chance de pouvoir pitcher mon projet de réseau social pour voyageurs lors de la première soirée. Le projet a plu, il a fait parti des 8 sélectionnés. On a donc pu monter une équipe pour travailler dessus pendant les 54h suivantes. Au final on n’a pas gagné le premier prix mais ce fut un superbe weekend. Beaucoup de personnes nous ont encouragés à continuer le projet car ils seraient les premiers utilisateurs de ce service.

Le projet continue donc sa route et devrait pouvoir aboutir à un moment ou à un autre. Pour en savoir plus sur le projet DitchTheTourBus (laissez tomber les bus touristiques) : Le site de démo

La présentation finale devant l’audience :

Ditch the Tour Bus - SWTC2 from TECHdotMN on Vimeo.

Sur cette même lancée je participerais jeudi soir à la conférence Minnedemo organisé par l’association Minne*. Le préfixe “Minne” étant là pour rappeler l’ancrage local (Minnesota, Minneapolis) de l’événement. La partie “demo” veut dire ce qu’elle veut dire. On va assister à des démos de produits locaux. Je vous stoppe tout de suite avant que votre imagination n’aille plus loin ce n’est pas un salon de l’Agriculture, il n’y aura pas ni saucisse ni fromage local mais bel et bien des jeunes pousses dans le monde des technologies. Des startups qui cherchent à se faire connaître et qui vont présenter leur service en 7 min. Le tout sans PowerPoint, et c’est bien le maître mot de la conférence, des démos, que des démos rien que des démos.

C’est une superbe occasion de voir ce qui se trame sur la scène locale. J’étais d’ailleurs surpris, c’est plutôt florissant même si on est perdu dans le Midwest. Mais comme toujours ce qui est intéressant c’est ce qui se passe en marge de l’événement et tout l’aspect networking. Il y aura entre 300 et 400 participants largement de quoi disséminer quelques cartes de visite et en récolter :)

Dans la liste des présentations disponible ici j’ai trouvé quelques boîtes dont je suivrais la présentation avec intérêt :

il y a qonqr.com dont j’ai déjà vu la béta-démo lors du Startup Weekend, ceux sont les gagnants de la première édition. C’est un jeu mobile géolocalisé. De ce que j’avais compris à l’époque il y a des histoires de prise de territoire, d’attaque et d’équipe. Le tout écrit en Silverlight car l’un des fondateurs est un mentor des technologies .net et Silverlight.

Inveni a également l’air intéressant et surf sur la vague des moteurs de recommandation. C’est la tendance du moment, à voir comment leur produit se différencie de tous ceux déjà sorti.

J’essayerais cette fois, promis, de faire un compte rendu :)

Fini les vacances. D’un coup d’un seul, pas le temps d’un Abracadabra, et nous revoilà reparti pour transformer nos âmes de joyeux lurons en élèves studieux. Dure tâche mais aisément réalisée car le système ne nous laisse pas le choix. En effet on vient de rentrer dans la période charnière entre le semestre d’automne et celui de printemps. Ce qu’on appelle chez nous l’intersemestre, qui sert à se reposer, à faire des stages ou quelques menues activités est ici un véritable mois de cours ! Un mois à suivre le même cours en mode marche rapide. Évidemment comme à chaque fois il y a ceux qui se sont bien débrouillés et les autres… Ceux qui ont le sens de la débrouille (magouille ?) en profitent pour passer un mois pépère à suivre une UV avec des cours seulement 3 jours par semaine et qui (si possible) ne demande pas trop de boulot. Les autres, dans mon genre, cherchent à agrandir leur culture et optent pour des vrais cours à raison de 4h par jour de 8h30 le matin à 10h puis de 13 à 15h. La suite n’étant que travail personnel. Autant dire que ceux-là n’y ont rien compris, y vont vraiment se suer à la tâche… Qui plus est, à l’unique tâche… Effectivement on n’a pas vraiment le luxe de se dire “et si je faisais ma petite rédaction pour arrêter de coder”. Nope, un cours, un seul, des devoirs, que ceux-là rien que ceux-là…

Déjà que les labos sont vides d’habitude mais je ne vous parle pas de l’interim… ! Cela renforce encore cette impression de bien être le seul clampin a avoir opté pour ce dur labeur. Et ces collocs qui se permettent de veiller, ou qui prennent le temps de prendre un petit déj…

Quoi qu’il y a peut-être du bénéfique là-dedans. Je suis un cours sur le parallélisme… J’arriverais peut-être à me faire un cerveau multicœurs avec un dédié au travail et l’autre aux plaisirs. Plus besoin de temporiser tout serait synchronisé. M’enfin ça se saurait si on pouvait organiser son temps comme ça.

À la banque y disent : “votre argent travaille pour vous, même quand vous dormez”, si seulement mon cerveau pouvait en faire autant…

Ma quête du jour était donc le feu ! Ce n’est pas vraiment une science exacte ce truc, parfois ça marche du premier coup, et parfois ça ne veut pas. C’était plutôt un jour sans… Ca faisait 5 fois que je remettais du StarTribune dans le foyer… rien… Je ventilais les maigres braises, ou plutôt je mettais de la cendre de partout, comme je pouvais… rien… J’ai ravalé mon orgueil et accepté ma défaite face aux Éléments.

Ce que je n’avais pas compris c’est que le feu ça a ses humeurs. Car Monsieur à tout à coup décider de lui-même de lancer quelques flammèches. Une, puis deux, puis tout s’est embrasé et nous voici enfin avec un feu digne de ce nom dans notre maison ! Je me suis senti un peu homme de cro-magnon découvrant le feu, fasciné par sa couleur et sa force. C’est quand même super-distrayant un feu ! J’aime voir les flammes dévorer le bois, l’entendre craquer et souffrir sous le grondement du feu. Tout ça certainement pour me distraire de mon boulot scolaire, c’est certains. D’ailleurs j’aimerais bien que ça aille plus vite, que je doive encore me lever pour ajouter une bûche, et ainsi quitter le rébarbatif TP d’assembleur.

Pour bien comprendre la place de se foyer il faut comprendre une chose… : Y FAIT SUPER-MÉGA-GIGA FROID ! Alors on a beau avoir été prévenu depuis septembre, on a beau nous avoir dit “That is just the beginning”, il n’empêche ! C’est un fait : ça caille. Il a neigé pour la première fois il y a quelques semaines. C’est arrivé d’un coup après une semaine où on était encore sans veste. Depuis ça fait un peu le yo-yo entre grand froid + neige + vent glacial et journée ensoleillée où ça fond. Pas encore eu le temps de faire un bonhomme de neige, mais je peux d’ores et déjà vous assurer que les plateaux de la cantine font de très bonnes luges !

Qui dit neige, dit Noël qui arrive… Et celui qui n’est pas au courant il le fait exprès ! Car direct après Halloween tous les magasins se sont mis à vendre des trucs “spécial Noël”. Exit les monstres et les fantômes, voilà le papa Noël \o/. En y réfléchissant ça fait un peu image de film ce que je suis en train de vivre là… Au coin du feu, des chaussettes de Noël sur la cheminée, un sapin illuminé, de la neige au dehors, le tout aux États-Unis :) Et encore “That is just the beginning”… !

Késako ce truc alors ?

Le principe est simple : pendant un weekend des developeurs, des entrepreuneurs etdes étudiants tous passionés de nouvelles technologies et motivés par l’envie d’entreprendre, se retrouvent pour imaginer des nouveaux concepts d’entreprises. Le tout ponctué de speech par des gens qui sont déjà dans cet univers. Ce genre d’événement a commencé il y a quelques années aux USA et aujourd’hui se sont plus d’une centaine de villes qui accueillent un Startup Weekend. Je très excité de vivre cette expérience :) C’est l’occasion de rencontrer des gens du métier et d’apprendre à leur côté, le tout sans perdre de vue l’aspect networking de ce genre d’événement.

Un weekend loin du campus et de sa vie de cours, pour quelque chose de différent .

Je vais essayer de tenir un live tweet sur @picsoung vous pouvez également suivre le hashtag #swtc2

Pour bien préparer cet événement j’ai investi dans des cartes de visites, un nouveau site profesionnel etun profil linkedin mis à jour, reste plus qu’à mettre tout ça en action ;-)