Well, those times come out now. We introduce a local phenomenon.

The Greater Lafayette ENVOLVE, a series of monthly events that engages people like you to publicly share 10 visions that would involve the community around us.

10 Visions. 5 Minutes Each. Every Month. *

First edition April 26, 2010, 6-9pm, at Knickeboker Saloon, 113 N 5th Street, Lafayette, IN. Knickerboker will provide a friendly environment, to allow speakers to feel more comfortable in front of an even more friendly audience.

Why wait for the next TED?

Submit your vision or idea you’d like to present at one of the MONTHLY Envolve events.

Speak up

If selected, you will have 5 minutes to present your sparkling vision or idea, in front of an audience of local people, investors, potential partners or future team members. Your presentation will be projected in front of the friendly audience. Register your presentation.

Your dreams may come true

Each monthly event will have good audience, sponsors and prizes hopefully, collaboration and investing opportunities.

Who should speak, present, envolve?

You may come out with any idea or speech, it is not a requirement to be a tech startup, it may be anything that is sparkling enough to present interest to a group of local people. Local scientists, musicians, artists, developers, engineers, activists, and all people that have something to say are considered for speaking at this event.

The organizers will filter the idea registrations, if more than 10 people will register for presentations we will schedule the extra entries for the next monthly editions of this event.

Selected speakers will need to submit their presentations prior to the event, to avoid unnecessary delays during the event.

Register your presentation.

Speakers List

We will publish here the entire list of speakers as soon as it becomes available.

• Nelu Lazar – Intro
• Duke Long – Localism
• Zachary Baiel – Tippepedia, an encyclopedia for Tippecanoe County
• Matt Hunckler – Building your dream on a cloud
• Ian Thompson – The current and future potential of community gardens
• Virtuous Cycles – Smart bikes and public bicycle lending
• Diana Morris – Center for Entrepreneurs
• Chris Voglund – 7 Ways to choose the right contractor
• …
• Register your presentation

Who should attend?

Any local people, Lafayette and West Lafayette community members, Purdue staff, students, angel investors, venture capitalists, local businesses, individuals. Your enthusiastic applauses for the brave speakers at this first edition of the event will secure organizing future Envolve events, so please be friendly and awesome! Must be 21 to enter the venue.

We are now looking for:

- potential sponsors for the event;
- local people willing to share their ideas and passions (register here);
- local angel investors, venture capitalists that would like to participate at visions presentations;
- other local companies or individuals willing to get envolved in this effort to find new local talents and bright ideas investors and our local community members may like.

Sponsorship opportunities:

• Silver sponsorship ($250) – includes sponsor’s name displayed in the program, before each presentation, and also electronic ad displayed on our lafayetweetup.wordpress.com blog for an entire month
• Gold sponsorship ($350) – includes sponsor’s name displayed in the program, before each presentation, additional banners, flyers, and also electronic ad displayed on our lafayetweetup.wordpress.com blog for an entire month
• Platinum sponsorship ($500) – includes sponsor’s name/logo displayed on all presentations, every second of the program, and also electronic ad displayed on our lafayetweetup.wordpress.com blog for an entire month
• Food/Catering sponsors accepted – includes sponsor’s name displayed in the program, before each presentation, and also electronic ad displayed on our lafayetweetup.wordpress.com blog for an entire month

All sponsorship funds will be used to better organize the event and for speakers prizes.

Call (765) 532-0672 for more information.

It is important to RSVP
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106133119414388

WHEN
Monday, April 26th, 2010
6:00-9:00pm

WHERE
Knickerboker Saloon
116 North 3rd Street
Lafayette, IN 47901-1225
(765) 429-8600
http://knickerbockersaloon.com
Food and drinks available to purchase.

THEME
Envolve – a series of monthly events that enable people like you to publicly share 10 visions that would inspire the community around you.

Register your presentation.

HASHTAG – #laftwt
Use it whenever you tweet anything about this event.

MEDIA PARTNERS
Z96.5 WAZY
BOB FM 95.3
Classic Rock 95.7 The Rocket
LWL-OurTown.com

SPONSORS
Lafayettech

RESOURCES
- @LafayeTweetup – http://twitter.com/lafayetweetup
- Envolve, official page – http://lafayettech.com/envolve

GET INSPIRED
Here is a very inspirational video showing a 5-minutes presentation from one of Envolve’s similar events, Ignite from O’Reilly Media.

DIRECTIONS to the Knickerboker Saloon – We’ll see you there on April 26!

EVENT’S POSTER – help us promote it, thanks!

* An extension of the @LafayeTweetup event, by Zachary Baiel, @NeluLazar, @DukeLong and John Fry @Electricelm.

Until then, here are some pics from our local Twestival, March 25 at Skylight Coffeehouse. We’ve broadcast the event on Ustream, check out this recording.

We’ll see you at the next tweetup, the Greater Lafayette ENVOLVE!

The March 25th tweetup event will now include the Twestival, a global event organized in 200+ cities around the world via social media tools to help a charity – at this edition the event will sponsor Concern Wordwide, an international charity bringing education to the world’s poorest children. Concern has been implementing innovative educational programs and solutions for over 40 years.

At this event we will also talk about Google Up effort to bring fiber optic ultra-high speed broadband network to our Greater Lafayette community.

RSVP
http://twtvite.com/laftwt6

WHEN
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
6:00-9:00pm

WHERE
Skylight Coffee House (@skylightcoffee)
116 North 3rd Street
Lafayette, IN 47901-1225
(765) 429-8600
http://skylightcoffee.com
Food and drinks available to purchase.

THEME
The global Twestival and talks about the upcoming Envolve event

HASHTAG – #laftwt
Use it whenever you tweet anything about this event.

MEDIA PARTNERS
Z96.5 WAZY
BOB FM 95.3
Classic Rock 95.7 The Rocket

RESOURCES
- @LafayeTweetup – http://twitter.com/lafayetweetup
- Local Twestival blog – http://lafayette.twestival.com
- Envolve – http://lafayettech.com/envolve

It was all a mixture of networking sub-events like new-media talks, the simulcast of Douglas Karr‘s “Blogging Conversions” presentation at the @BlogIndiana event in Valparaiso, snacks and treats, Greater Lafayette community development ideas.

@LafayeTweetup: the Lafayette tweetup #5 ended up with the most interesting conversation ever. so far. #staytuned

The presentation starts at 8 pm, but we will meet at 7 pm to chat and set up.

Host:

Realty Executives Lafayette: Downtown Lafayette, 835 Main Street

This time we only had a regular networking event, where topics like iPad, blogging, startups, music projects, community have been openly discussed. The participants also made plans for our local tweetups in 2010. Stay tuned for more news as we move forward.

Now you’d better get ready for the local tweetup #5, taking place next week, on February 24th, 7-10pm at Realty Executives HQ in Lafayette. A separate blog post with the official announcement and details will be published soon.

RSVP: http://twtvite.com/30kpf6

Hashtag: #laftwt

Blog: http://lafayetweetup.wordpress.com

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/lafayetweetup

When:
Friday, January 29th, 6-10pm

Host:
Scotty’s Brewhouse
Wabash Landing
352 E. State St.
765-746-3131

Media partners:
Z96.5 WAZY
BOB FM 95.3
Classic Rock 95.7 The Rocket
LafayetteOnline.com
LWL-OurTown.com

Partners:
Lafayettech

See you on Friday!

Our Host

Courtyard by Marriott was kind enough to offer the conference room for us this time, so we could enjoy a nice environment to debate blogging, SEO, web tools, apps and social media. If you will travel to Lafayette these days, you may consider Courtyard’s offers of 10% off Rack Rate and office parties for Holidays. Call them and ask for details.

Blogging and SEO Panel

The “Blogging and SEO” panel nicely transformed into meaningful presentations provided individually by each our speakers: Günes Yilmaztuerk (Founder and CMO of Sollé Coaching, Lafayette), Michael Reynolds (President and CEO at SpinWeb, Indianapolis), Andrew Gouty (Sales Manager at Deep Ripples, Indianapolis) and Douglas Karr (President and CEO at DK New Media, Indianapolis). They made an awesome team, their presentations completing each other, answering a lot of questions and revealing secrets for running a successful blog.

Specials for Tweetup Attendees

Tweetup attendees had the privilege to get access to a free copy of Douglas Karr’s $199-valued e-book “25 Steps to Success: Search Engine Optimization and Business Blogging“.

Social Media Tools and Apps

The “Social Media Tools and Apps” was an un-panel revealing some insights of a social media application, challenges that developers face while implementing external API, and it also suggested how your perspective should be while approaching a *free* application’s developer and what to really expect from it while reporting issues or trying to help with ideas. Speakers for this panel were: Ed Finkler (Creator of Spaz, a Lafayette-based open source Microblogging client for desktop and mobile), Vince Koser (Creator of CeTwit, a Lafayette-based full featured windows mobile Twitter client) and Nelu Lazar (Lead organizer of the local Tweetup and Twestival events, and Founder of Tweetvisor, a Lafayette-based multi-account Twitter interface for businesses).

Entrepreneurs of Lafayette, Indiana

Our Greater Lafayette in Indiana has many talents launching awesome startups that more people should learn about – this is something we’d like to encourage next year, by organizing local workshops and special startup events. Contact us if interested in actively participate.

Greater Lafayette Online Awards

The other event module we’d like to develop and improve for the next year is the local “Greater Lafayette Online Awards”. For 2010 we plan to split nominations and voting processes, to allow people to first express their suggestions for local blogs, news websites, niche websites, startups etc., then vote for the nominated candidates.

Winners of the Greater Lafayette Online Awards 2009

The great winner of the Lafayette Online Awards 2009 is http://artisanelectric.net/blog of @ArtisanElectric, nominated for and winning the title of the Best Local Business Blog in Lafayette, Indiana. Here are the final results for this category. Congratulations Chris Voglund, who have won a copy of the book “Twitter Marketing for Dummies” by Kyle P. Lacy of Indianapolis, the “easy-to-understand guide that quickly moves on to techniques for incorporating a Twitter strategy into your marketing mix, combining new and old media, building your network, using Twitter tools, and measuring your success“.

The winners of the other local awards categories were purdueetech.wordpress.com for the Best Local Collaborative Blog, merandawrites.com and clarkcreations.net/blog sharing the top position for the Best Local Personal Blog and jconline.com for the Best Local News Website.

Media Partners and Sponsors

The media partners of this event were local radio stations WAZY 96.5, Bob FM 95.3 and Classic Rock 95.7 Lafayette, and the online news website LafayetteOnline.com.

Contact us if you would like to become a media partner or a sponsor for our future monthly tweetup events.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks to all who attended this 3rd edition of our local tweetup. We have more surprises for the next year, hopefully more people will join these workshops and fun events. Follow @LafayeTweetup for news and updates.

Have safe and happy Holidays!

We asked a few questions to our guest speakers for the local Lafayette Tweetup #3 on Monday, December 7th. We hope you will follow their advices and that you will join the 2-panels/7-speakers event at the Courtyard Marriott. RSVP.

» Why should local businesses, startups and individuals attend local tweetup events?

Douglas Karr (@douglaskarr)
President and CEO at DK New Media, Indianapolis
The impact that new social mediums is having on business is substantial. In a down economy, these types of events can arm you with some incredible samples of how businesses are incorporating social media into their acquisition, retention and customer service strategies. As well, there are often a few folks in attendance that can help you and your business out!
(Doug will join the Blogging and SEO panel, Dec 7th)

Michael Reynolds (@michaelreynolds)
President and CEO at SpinWeb, Indianapolis
Because it is a great place to engage in informal discussion about how to use modern communication tools to grow your business.
(Michael will join the Blogging and SEO panel, Dec 7th)

Günes Yilmaztuerk (@gunesy)
Founder and CMO of Sollé Coaching, Lafayette
Social media platforms empower us to network without the boundaries of time and geography. Local tweetups help strengthen these relationships with face-to-face meetings. They also provide the opportunity to meet other professionals and business owners while learning from industry experts.
(Günes will join the Blogging and SEO panel, Dec 7th)

Ed Finkler (@funkatron)
Creator of Spaz, a Lafayette-based open source Microblogging client for desktop and mobile
I think it offers a great insight into the folks behind the Twitter accounts you read. Get to know them, understand their motivations, and build relationships – both business and personal.
(Ed will join the Social Media Tools and Apps panel, Dec 7th)

Andrew Gouty (@agouty)
Sales Manager at Deep Ripples, Indianapolis
In a word, opportunity. Networking in the kind of low-risk environment that tweetups provide serves to connect in a community that can be otherwise rare. Business, non-profits, and individuals have a lot to gain, and really not much to lose.
(Andrew will join the Blogging and SEO panel, Dec 7th)

Vince Koser (@vkoser)
Creator of CeTwit, a Lafayette-based full featured windows mobile Twitter client
I think there are nearly limitless ways to interact with social media and discussing those methods in person with a group can lead to new insight into ways to leverage existing tools or come up with ideas for new ones. Discussing ideas and other peoples perceptions of those ideas is a good way to gauge popularity of potential ideas and means of interacting prior to undertaking those ideas.
(Vince will join the Social Media Tools and Apps panel, Dec 7th)

Nelu Lazar (@nelulazar)
Electrical Project Engineer, and Founder of Tweetvisor, a Lafayette-based multi-account Twitter interface for businesses
I feel that connecting online will continue to be the aggressively ascendant trend in the next years, for individuals, businesses and other entities. Start by meeting local people you’ve met online, learn more about people in your network and open your way to connecting and getting introduced to more people who could help you achieve your personal or professional goals.
(Nelu will join the Social Media Tools and Apps panel, Dec 7th)

» Should a local tweetup event be scary because I will face people I’ve met online or even people I don’t know?

Douglas Karr (@douglaskarr):
The value of online networking is in the off-line exchange. Pressing the flesh is the ultimate goal of networking online. This is where the action happens and business cards fly!

Michael Reynolds (@michaelreynolds):
No.

Günes Yilmaztuerk (@gunesy):
After you’ve already “met” people online and exchanged emails, meeting them in person is absolutely great because you already know them, you know their company, you know their values and their work ethics. This is the chance to get to know each other better, to exchange business cards, to talk about possible collaborations.

Ed Finkler (@funkatron):
I’ve always found them a little scary at first, but once you dive in it’s a lot of fun. Everyone feels the same way you do, so there’s no reason to be intimidated.

Andrew Gouty (@agouty):
Yes, people fear what they don’t know. In a nutshell, fear of meeting new people is a great thing because it signifies personal growth.

Nelu Lazar (@nelulazar):
It’s either face them and learn new things or stay in the shadow and misteriously tweet about them. Tweetups usually gather people sharing the same thoughts, so there’s nothing to be ashamed, scared or suspicious about. All of the people joining tweetups are mind-opened, fun and willing to connect, help and get helped.

» Can I still attend a local tweetup even if my business is not a tech one or not online-related?

Douglas Karr (@douglaskarr):
Absolutely! Don’t be intimidated by us geeks… we’re a helpful bunch and these are the best events to squeeze us for some free consulting and advice!

Michael Reynolds (@michaelreynolds):
Yes.

Günes Yilmaztuerk (@gunesy):
Can you say free consulting? Can you say free knowledge exchange? Can you say potential clients? And, believe me, by the time you’ve asked your questions, seen what online marketing can do for you, and have gotten an idea of how to get started – really, by the time we’re done with you, you won’t be able to wait to get home and get online!

Ed Finkler (@funkatron):
Of course! Twitter offers a way to make a more personal connection with your customers, no matter what business you’re in.

Andrew Gouty (@agouty):
Of course! Diversity in these groups only serves everyone by offering different points of view. Non-tech and non-online business attendance enriches the experience and makes it more holistic.

Nelu Lazar (@nelulazar):
So far I tried to keep these tweetup events opened for any kind of local businesses and individuals that would like to use Internet as a communication environment, for various reasons and goals. Yes, please join our series of events no matter what you currently do, as soon as you are planning to use online tools to achieve your goals.

» What’s the best thing that can come out of these local tweetup events?

Douglas Karr (@douglaskarr):
Online -> Off-line -> Business Card -> Business -> Invoice -> $

Michael Reynolds (@michaelreynolds):
Networking and education.

Günes Yilmaztuerk (@gunesy):
Learning. Relationships. Strategic partners. After all this – can there be a reason NOT to attend?

Ed Finkler (@funkatron):
You make new friends, learn new skills, and have a good time.

Andrew Gouty (@agouty):
A stronger, more connected local economy, and all the positives that come with it (there are lots).

Nelu Lazar (@nelulazar):
I have new friends from Lafayette, West Lafayette, Purdue, Indianapolis etc. already due to the first two tweetup events I have organized so far. Many people learned new things about online environment and they enjoy this knowledge every day now. I really hope this tweetup series will grow as I expect, and that together we will keep the local online environment something we should all be proud of.

This article is subject to future updates.

The winners will be revealed at the local Greater Lafayette Tweetup #3, scheduled to take place at the Courtyard Marriott, Monday December 7th, 2009, starting with 7pm.

» Click here for details about this event.

VOTE HERE

• Best Local Personal Blog [get your participant badge]
• Best Local Business Blog [get your participant badge]
• Best Local Collaborative Blog [get your participant badge]
• Best Local News Website [get your participant badge]
• Best Local Startup [get your participant badge]

.