Kickstand Blog

UP NEXT
July Monthly Meeting
What:  'Meet Boise' Scavenger Hunt
When: Thursday, July 8, 2010 @ 5:30-7:30pm
Where: Starts at  The WaterCooler
RSVP

You spend lots of time focused on putting your best foot forward, whether to new hires, investors, strategic partners or potential customers. The perfect pitch, the ultimate sales deck, the polished presentation. What about the rest? As businesses grow, it is very likely that customers, vendors, investors, or partners will come into town for meetings, sales pitches and otherwise. So what next?

When visitors come to town, what do you do with them?
Where do you take them for lunch, dinner or after-hours entertainment?
Where do you recommend they stay?

No matter what business you are in, or hoping to be in, you are also in the entertainment business.

Join us for an entertaining and interactive July Kickstand meeting - the 'Meet Boise' Scavenger Hunt - designed to get members out and about to find new locales and share their favorite spots with each other.

Oh, and have fun and win prizes along the way!
KICKSTAND MEMBERS MAY BRING ONE GUEST FOR FREE
RSVP Now!
(No need to log in to RSVP, just complete the form)

UP NEXT
June Monthly Meeting
What:  Capturing Intellectual Property
When: Thursday, June 10, 2010 @ 5:30-7pm
Where: The WaterCooler
RSVP

You asked, we listened. Join Kickstand June 10 for a meeting devoted to 'Capturing Intellectual Property.' It's a topic many of our members have been asking for more information about, and was an issue discussed among many IdaVation attendees. If you have an idea, even an inkling of an idea, you need to be here.

Featuring Bill Meade and Bob Sesek of Idaho-based BasicIP, an intellectual property consulting firm, June's meeting will be highly interactive and directed by you, the attendees. Bill and Bob have three topics they could address, and will leave it up to the attendees to choose one of the following at the start of the meeting. Take the jump to RSVP and see the three topics attendees will chose from.

INNOVATION IN THE NEWS

The Economist
In praise of Boise: Why space really is the final frontier in the Internet age

"...Brain workers like to live near each other. It is easier to keep up with the latest ideas if you keep bumping into other people who work in the same field. As Alfred Marshall, an English economist, wrote in 1890: in industrial clusters “the mysteries of the trade become no mystery, but are, as it were, in the air.” That is why geeks flock to Silicon Valley and financiers converge on New York. But such clusters can become victims of their own success. When a hotspot gets too hot, it becomes expensive to live there, which spurs some brainy people—especially those with children—to migrate to places that are not quite so hot but more liveable..."

Forbes
The Knowledge Economy: America's Most Innovative Cities
"...For our ranking we started with the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. and used data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to determine number of patents per capita. Then we combined it with venture capital investment per capita from the National Venture Capital Association, along with those cities' ratios of high-tech, science and "creative" jobs from ZoomProspector.com and Payscale.com..."
(No. 16 - Boise, Idaho)

Wall Street Journal
Montana, Oklahoma (& Idaho) Outdo usual Suspects in Entrepreneur Study

"...The most active states for entrepreneurial activity last year were Montana and Oklahoma, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. The annual study of new business creation found that the two states had the highest entrepreneurial activity rates, with 470 per 100,000 adults creating businesses each month. The other states with the highest rates were Arizona (460 per 100,000 adults), and Texas and Idaho, both with 450 businesses started per 100,000 adults..."

Gofi.sh Wins 2nd Annual Idaho Startup Weekend

Nampa-based Great American Appetizers President and COO Named Regional Finalists for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award

Kristi Saucerman, President & CEO of Boise-based Auction Frogs, one of three women business owners recognized with NAWBO/Wells Fargo Trailblazer Award

SAVE THE DATE

What: Girls in Tech Boise Is 1 year old!
Come celebrate the organization, and the rich and diverse tech community of the Boise Valley.
When: Thursday, June 24, 5:30pm
Where: Owyhee Plaza Patio
RSVP

What: Idaho Technology Council 1st Annual Golf Invitational & Celebration
When: June 22, tee off at noon
Where: Crane Creek Country Club
Cost: $86.70 for full day of golf and meals. Option to attend a post-golf reception at 5pm
RSVP for golf. Contact Jay Larsen at 208-388-3357 or jlarsen@idahotechcouncil.org to RSVP for reception

June Monthly Meeting
What:  Capturing Intellectual Property
When: Thursday, June 10, 2010 @ 5:30-7pm
Where: The WaterCooler
RSVP

You asked, we listened. Join Kickstand June 10 for a meeting devoted to 'Capturing Intellectual Property.' It's a topic many of our members have been asking for more information about, and was an issue discussed among many IdaVation attendees. If you have an idea, even an inkling of an idea, you need to be here.

Featuring Bill Meade and Bob Sesek of Idaho-based BasicIP, an intellectual property consulting firm, June's meeting will be highly interactive and directed by you, the attendees. Bill and Bob have three topics they could address, and will leave it up to the attendees to choose one of the following at the start of the meeting:

#1 IP Management for Startups 

• Introduction to what intellectual property is
• How IP pays for itself
• Dominant Designs and Architectural Control Points explained  
• The life cycle of high tech company involvement with IP
• A suggested strategy for high tech companies as they go through their life cycles

#2 Capturing IP Once You've Started UP: Case Study

• Case Study of Invention Workshop for Baseline
• Introduction to strategic Patenting Targets
• Demonstration of how strategic targets are derived on the fly
• Dominant Design and Architectural Control Points Explained
• Technology S-Curves explained  
• Explanation of how a workshop works
• Summary explanation of results: John Fordemwalt can describe how it worked for him

#3 Pocket Guide to Invention Workshops

• What you get from an invention workshop
• What you have to do to get it
• How to plan an invention workshop
• The Slide Deck
• Aftermath

Show up with business cards - there will be several opportunities to share your interest in deeper-dive workshops on IP.

RSVP now to secure your spot!